Lucasta Miller

77. Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph by Lucasta Miller
OPD: 2021
format: 321-page hardcover
acquired: Library Loan read: Oct 26 – Nov 12 time reading: 13:43, 2.6 mpp
rating: 4½
genre/style: biography and literary analysis theme: Poetry
locations: England
about the author: English writer and literary journalist raised in London, born 1966

This is an accessible, enjoyable, and beautiful introduction to Keats. I read it because when I read about Emily Dickinson and Wilfred Owen, I kept seeing aspects of them described as Keatsian. I wanted to know what that meant, but I have never read Keats. Miller takes a single poem and writes a biographical essay around it. The goes to the next poem. It was a perfect take for me. I've now read his most famous stuff and read about them. It's rich. I learned Keats was a beautiful, a special writer who managed to put things down on paper that are so hard to describe (even for Miller), or pin down. This aspect leaves us only thinking about them more, and wondering about them more, and wondering about the spirit behind them. I'm not convinced there is another way to read these (I slightly exaggerate). He was also a prolific letter writer, who was free and playful and experimental and remarkably open in his letters. Apparently Regency era letter writing was a freer thing than letter writing at other times. And from his letters comes the concept and term 'negative capability' - which is merely an idea he wrote down once, briefly in a letter, and only once, this idea he mastered and that so many of our poets and creative writers strive to capture.

I think I knew before that Keats died young. He was born in 1795, never settled down, and tied of tuberculosis in 1821 (in Rome), age 26. All of his world changing writing happened roughly in 1818 to 1820, three years. He also was trained in medicine (and understood as well as anyone what his tuberculosis meant, both medically, and by having watched a brother die of it).

For those curious, the nine poems are "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (which has rebellious aspect I wasn't aware of), the 4000 line "Endymion", which opens "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever", "Isabella; or the Pot of Basil", "The Eve of St. Agnes", "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode to a Grecian Urn", "To Autumn", and "Bright Star" (this last is also the name of a movie about him that Miller more or less shreds)

I adored this and I'm so happy to have it. I can't think about Keats without a sense of joy shining now. I highly recommend this to anyone not already a Keats scholar. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, and Keats matches his line.

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/365030#8681269… (more)

I struggled a bit to work out who this book is for. It's too unsystematic and superficial to be any sort of serious introduction. Recent scholarship is lightly touched on and moved away from before it gets really interesting and occasionally there is a slightly dutiful and secondhand feel to some of the writing (e.g. the passage on Peterloo and 'To Autumn'). Occasionally I felt the book was about to veer off into personal memoir but it always pulls back and that is to Lucasta Miller's credit I think. The choice of poems is sound but unsurprising. Overall though I was glad to have read it despite reservations.… (more)

I came to this biography when, during the frustrations of Covid-19 lockdown, I looked through an old copy of the "Literary Review". A compelling analysis of the life, work and reputation of an English writer I'd never heard of, it is the story of a young woman of talent and originality whose creativity and person were abused and exploited - the book both vivid and disturbing. Despite the biography's rather recherché title, I am grateful that Lucusta Miller has introduced me to Letitia Landon, and hope that the Letitias of the 21st century may be nurtured not exploited.… (more)

Fascinating reclamation of the most popular English poet, since forgotten, of the nebulous "post-Byronic era," 1824-39. Letitia Landon led a double life--virginal poetess by day, her publisher's mistress (who abandoned 3 children) by night--until the two collided and destroyed her reputation. Combined with her hackneyed brand of passion poetry falling out of fashion, the loss of reputation eventually proved fatal to her career. She died a probable suicide at age 36. Of interest historically as a transitional figure, but there's no evidence here that, as a poet and novelist, she didn't deserve to fall into obscurity.… (more)