Most Popular Books by John Keats

Here is the first reliable edition of John Keats’s complete poems designed expressly for general readers and students. Upon its publication in 1978, Jack Stillinger’s The Poems of John Keats won exceptionally high praise: “The definitive Keats,” proclaimed The New Republic—“An authoritative edition embodying the readings the poet himself most probably intended, prepared by the leading scholar in Keats textual studies.” Now this scholarship is at last available in a graceful, clear format designed to introduce students and general readers to the “real” Keats. In place of the textual apparatus that was essential to scholars, Stillinger here provides helpful explanatory notes. These notes give dates of composition, identify quotations and allusions, gloss names and words not included in the ordinary desk dictionary, and refer the reader to the best critical interpretations of the poems. The new introduction provides central facts about Keats’s life and career, describes the themes of his best work, and speculates on the causes of his greatness.

''I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death,'' John Keats soberly prophesied in 1818 as he started writing the blankverse epic Hyperion. Today he endures as the archetypal Romantic genius who explored the limits of the imagination and celebrated the pleasures of the senses but suffered a tragic early death. Edmund Wilson counted him as ''one of the half dozen greatest English writers,'' and T. S. Eliot has paid tribute to the Shakespearean quality of Keats''s greatness. Indeed, his work has survived better than that of any of his contemporaries the devaluation of Romantic poetry that began early in this century. This Modern Library edition contains all of Keats''s magnificent verse: ''Lamia,'' ''Isabella,'' and ''The Eve of St. Agnes''; his sonnets and odes; the allegorical romance Endymion; and the five-act poetic tragedy Otho the Great. Presented as well are the famous posthumous and fugitive poems, including the fragmentary ''The Eve of Saint Mark'' and the great ''La Belle Dame sans Merci,'' perhaps the most distinguished literary ballad in the language. ''No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perception of loveliness,'' said Matthew Arnold. ''In the faculty of naturalistic interpretation, in what we call natural magic, he ranks with Shakespeare.''

''I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death,'' John Keats soberly prophesied in 1818 as he started writing the blankverse epic Hyperion. Today he endures as the archetypal Romantic genius who explored the limits of the imagination and celebrated the pleasures of the senses but suffered a tragic early death. Edmund Wilson counted him as ''one of the half dozen greatest English writers,'' and T. S. Eliot has paid tribute to the Shakespearean quality of Keats''s greatness. Indeed, his work has survived better than that of any of his contemporaries the devaluation of Romantic poetry that began early in this century. This Modern Library edition contains all of Keats''s magnificent verse: ''Lamia,'' ''Isabella,'' and ''The Eve of St. Agnes''; his sonnets and odes; the allegorical romance Endymion; and the five-act poetic tragedy Otho the Great. Presented as well are the famous posthumous and fugitive poems, including the fragmentary ''The Eve of Saint Mark'' and the great ''La Belle Dame sans Merci,'' perhaps the most distinguished literary ballad in the language. ''No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perception of loveliness,'' said Matthew Arnold. ''In the faculty of naturalistic interpretation, in what we call natural magic, he ranks with Shakespeare.''

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Reproduction of the original: Endymion by John Keats