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Title details for Keats by Lucasta Miller - Available

Keats

A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph

by Lucasta Miller
Sally Scott
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
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2 of 2 copies available
A dazzling new look into the short but intense, tragic life and remarkable work of John Keats, one of the greatest lyric poets of the English language, seen in a whole new light, not as the mythologized Victorian guileless nature-lover, but as the subversive, bawdy complex cynic whose life and poetry were lived and created on the edge.
In this brief life, acclaimed biographer Lucasta Miller takes nine of Keats's best-known poems—"Endymion"; "On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer"; "Ode to a Nightingale"; "To Autumn"; "Bright Star" among them—and excavates how they came to be and what in Keats's life led to their creation. She writes of aspects of Keats's life that have been overlooked, and explores his imagination in the context of his world and experience, paying tribute to the unique quality of his mind.
 
Miller, through Keats’s poetry, brilliantly resurrects and brings vividly to life, the man, the poet in all his complexity and spirit, living dangerously, disdaining respectability and cultural norms, and embracing subversive politics. Keats was a lower-middle-class outsider from a tragic and fractured family, whose extraordinary energy and love of language allowed him to pummel his way into the heart of English literature; a freethinker and a liberal at a time of repression, who delighted in the sensation of the moment.
 
We see how Keats was regarded by his contemporaries (his writing was seen as smutty) and how the young poet’s large and boisterous life—a man of the metropolis, who took drugs, was sexually reckless and afflicted with syphilis—went straight up against the Victorian moral grain; and Miller makes clear why his writing—considered marginal and avant-garde in his own day—retains its astonishing originality, sensuousness and power two centuries on.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 19, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593550731
      • File size: 290366 KB
      • Duration: 10:04:55

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      With barely a dozen audiobooks to her credit, British actress Sally Scott will be a new voice to most listeners, but her performance here is sure to win fans. Clear, confident, precise, her fluent and melodic rendition of Keats's lines will draw poetry lovers back again and again. Author Lucasta Miller's approach of devoting each chapter to a single poem, and of opening the chapter with the text of the poem, is both focused and expansive, packing a broad range of biographical detail into a concentrated analysis. Scott is an exemplary narrator on every count, but her verse readings have a particular grace and naturalism--and are incomparable. Even those who have treasured Keats for a lifetime will experience these lines freshly, in all their richness of imagery and sublime melody. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 6, 2021
      Critic Miller (The Brontë Myth) considers the life of English poet John Keats (1795–1821) via nine of his poems in this detailed and original study. Melding biography, close reading, and personal essay, Miller creates an intimate account of Keats’s endeavor “to use the abstract medium of language to bring body and soul together.” Miller examines each poem and the circumstances of its composition, alongside key events in Keats’s life. Her reading of “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” tells of the deaths of several of his family members during his childhood; “Endymion” sheds light on Keats’s decision as a young man to leave his apothecary apprenticeship and pursue poetry; and the epitaph, titled “Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water,” offers insight into his death in Rome at the age of 25, which he viewed as his “only comfort.” Miller conveys a strong personal connection with the poet (having “lived in Keats’s stomping ground”), and shares anecdotes about her research, her visit to one of Keats’s residences, and her attempt to find a bench he once supposedly sat on. These personal sections bring in some levity to balance her taut analysis. This penetrating and charming study will enchant Keats’s fans.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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