Routledge Library Editions: Keats – serie

Reissuing texts originally published between 1958 and 1981, Routledge Library Editions: Keats offers a selection of scholarship on the poet and his works. Classic previously out-of-print books are brought back into print here in this small set of dramatic and literary criticism.

In the early nineteenth century, the publishing house of Taylor & Hessey brought out the work of Keats, Clare, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Carlyle, Lamb, Coleridge and many more of the most important literary figures of the time, as well as the great literary journal of the period, the London Magazine. Tim Chilcott here examines the life and work of John Taylor, the firm’s founder.The account, originally published in 1972 and incorporating a large amount of hitherto unpublished material, is a fascinating piece of literary, social and publishing history, showing clearly the relationship between the author and his publisher, and in turn between the publisher and the reading public.

In this introduction to the life and works of John Keats, originally published in 1981, William Walsh presents a comprehensive but approachable study which illuminates first the poems, indirectly the man, and more obliquely the period. Working within a biographical framework, the author looks at Keats from the point of view of the development of his art and sensibility, examining all the major poems and relating them to the letters; reference is made throughout the book to the best contemporary critical writing on the subject and a select bibliography is provided.

This book is the result of investiging whether Ode to a Nightingale could be interpreted as the record of an actual song that moved Keats so deeply as to involve, in Jung’s terms, an experience of the Self. . It is in effect a biographical study of one aspect of Keats’ life of the imagination. It suggests why he became a poet, shows how his attitude to his poetry changed, how in Jungian terms he first met his ‘shadow’, rejected it, then came to accept it, and how this affected his poetry.The meaning of the few psychological terms used in the book are clarified by illustration from Keats’ own writing, thus contributing to its understanding at the same time.An intimate relationship between his letters and the poems is shown. First published in 1964, the study throws light on well-worn themes such as what Keats meant by beauty, his theory of ‘negative capability’, why he abandoned Hyperion. It gives a fresh interpretation of Endymion and of aspects of the two versions of Hyperion, Lamia, The Eve of St Agnes, and the other great odes. Among details is has something to say on why La Belle Dame kissed her knight precisely four times.

This study, first published in 1945, gives a precise description of the unfolding of a great poet’s craftsmanship and suggests alignments of the technical progression with the changes of the mind.Metrical analysis is given in order to throw light on Keats’ general stylistic development using the simplest terminology and in a traditional manner. Earlier English prosodic writings are referred to throughout in order to place the style and development in the context of the period. Arranged chronologically, each chapter looks at a particular work or group of works drawing together evidence about Keats’ poetic direction.This classic work from a well-known Keats scholar is an important enlightening contribution within the extensive study of Keats’ poetry and letters.

In the early nineteenth century, the publishing house of Taylor & Hessey brought out the work of Keats, Clare, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Carlyle, Lamb, Coleridge and many more of the most important literary figures of the time, as well as the great literary journal of the period, the London Magazine. Tim Chilcott here examines the life and work of John Taylor, the firm’s founder.The account, originally published in 1972 and incorporating a large amount of hitherto unpublished material, is a fascinating piece of literary, social and publishing history, showing clearly the relationship between the author and his publisher, and in turn between the publisher and the reading public.

In this introduction to the life and works of John Keats, originally published in 1981, William Walsh presents a comprehensive but approachable study which illuminates first the poems, indirectly the man, and more obliquely the period. Working within a biographical framework, the author looks at Keats from the point of view of the development of his art and sensibility, examining all the major poems and relating them to the letters; reference is made throughout the book to the best contemporary critical writing on the subject and a select bibliography is provided.

This book is the result of investiging whether Ode to a Nightingale could be interpreted as the record of an actual song that moved Keats so deeply as to involve, in Jung’s terms, an experience of the Self. . It is in effect a biographical study of one aspect of Keats’ life of the imagination. It suggests why he became a poet, shows how his attitude to his poetry changed, how in Jungian terms he first met his ‘shadow’, rejected it, then came to accept it, and how this affected his poetry.The meaning of the few psychological terms used in the book are clarified by illustration from Keats’ own writing, thus contributing to its understanding at the same time.An intimate relationship between his letters and the poems is shown. First published in 1964, the study throws light on well-worn themes such as what Keats meant by beauty, his theory of ‘negative capability’, why he abandoned Hyperion. It gives a fresh interpretation of Endymion and of aspects of the two versions of Hyperion, Lamia, The Eve of St Agnes, and the other great odes. Among details is has something to say on why La Belle Dame kissed her knight precisely four times.