In 1818, the poet John Keats writes in a letter to his brother and sister-in-law, “I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death”. At the time he is writing this, Keats is broke and practically homeless, and it’s less than three years before his death. I keep coming back to this now-famous quote of Keats’ because there is something about it that is insightful, perhaps childish, and heart breaking all at once. I have often wondered if he truly believes what he is saying, or if he is saying it to put on a brave face after bad reviews.
There are moments when I paint that I feel it, it happens seldom but it does happen. I am completely in a painting, lost to the world, and when I get out of that trance, I can feel that I’ve made a good painting. There’s something inside of me that just knows it. Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m in no way trying to say that any of my painting comes close to being as good as Keats’ writing. But I wonder, does Keats feel that way when he writes that to his family? Does he just know that his ability and his writing would stand the test of time?
I think maybe so. He quits surgical school to dedicate his life to his poetry, essentially resigning himself to near poverty. He had to have a feeling that somewhere deep inside him there was writing that was eternal (he also maybe had some crazy in him). On his epitaph, he wants “Here lies one whose name was writ on water” written, which indicates that he kind of knows his writing is timeless. He wanted WAS. Not is. If it said is, his name would be continually presently written in water and continually presently being dispersed and forgotten. But it’s was. Critics at one point dismissed him; his name is writ on water once, but only for a brief spell. Sadly that brief spell came about while he is living.
It’s entirely possible that he is being arrogant and childish and just saying that to deal with bad reviews, but I doubt that. His letters and the love of his friends really don’t point to him being an arrogant person. The letters actually show just how insightful, caring, humorous and kind Keats is. And how sad it is that he dies so young.
“I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death” is heart breaking for so many reasons, chiefly being the obvious fact that the world lost a great talent long before he could strengthen his voice. We never got to experience Keats’ own “Prisoners” (I’m making a reference here to Michelangelo’s later works. The Prisoner’s series are a group of seemingly unfinished marble sculptures of figures. But they are much more than that; they are humans being born from the rock, who are still trapped by what they came from. Yes his first Pieta is amazing, yes the Sistine Chapel is unreal, but his later sculptures are so much more raw, so much more emotional, so much more…real).
But there’s a lot more to it than that. It’s almost as if Keats knows, long before he is seriously sick, long before he actually dies, that his death is an essential part to his life. From taking care of his dying, tubercular mother as a child, to learning the crude rules of early 19th century English surgery, to taking care of his dying, tubercular brother, to finally his own ever-nagging ill-health, death permeates Keats’ whole life. It is as if death follows him around, and instead of trying to fight it, Keats, very early on, accepts death, and works with it as best he can. When he finally starts to get seriously ill, he identifies (through his surgical training and the care he gave his mother and brother) exactly what was wrong with him, and tries to live around it. He publishes a book and falls deeper in love with Fanny Brawne. He is used to death. It’s both a sad fact, but something that seems to have possibly been necessary to his work. Perhaps if Keats weren’t so aware of the fragility of life, he wouldn’t have given up surgery for writing. Perhaps is he wasn’t so aware of the fragility of life, he wouldn’t have been so transparent and able to readily express life and it’s beauties in his work. I don’t know, these are just speculations. But I feel that in saying “I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death”, Keats is acknowledging his own death and the importance it plays in his poetry.
It is such a famous quote now, that we’ve lost the connection to Keats in it, the part of the quote that comes from a human. Now it's just a cool saying that enforces the stereotype that artists get famous after death. But that's not what Keats was going for when he wrote it, that is not what it is really about. It’s a person coming to terms with his life. It is a moment of acceptance, in many ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment