John Keats was born today in writing history, October 31. Celebrate the poet’s birthday by learning more about his life and contributions to poetry. Aspiring writers should also use this opportunity as a writing exercise. Look for inspiration today in writing history.
Today in Writing: October 31 – John Keats’s Birthday
John Keats was born on October 31, 1795, and is best known for his poems Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn. Keats’s life was tragically short, and he died before his poetry gained mainstream popularity. However, since his death, the poet’s work has become an integral piece of English literature. Find your inspiration in the stories, works, and words in this installment of Today in Writing: October 31.
Writing Prompts for Today In Writing: October 31
Please take this opportunity to learn more about John Keats and his poetic contributions. The author’s romantic prose has become a mainstay in English poetry. It continues to inspire writers over 200 years after his death. Despite his short life and unknown status at the time of his death, Keats has become a legendary figure in English literature.
What led John Keats to write? Where did the inspiration for his ideas come from? And what helped the poet create his unique writing style? Find inspiration about Keats, learn more details about his life, and write!
John Keats Biography
John Keats was born in Moorgate, London, England, on October 31, 1795. His parents, Thomas and Frances, came from humble origins, and the family lived a modest lifestyle. Wanting to send their children to a prestigious school, the Keats family faced financial difficulty. John would attend a boarding school in Enfield.
In 1804, when John Keats was eight, his father, Thomas, died from a skull fracture after falling from his horse. The family would relocate to live with their maternal grandparents. In his youth, Keats was a volatile character, prone to fighting. However, in 1809, the poet seemingly refocused on his studies and would win his first academic prize that summer. In March 1810, his mother, Frances, died of tuberculosis.
The Career of John Keats
In October 1815, Keats enrolled in a medical program at Guy’s Hospital, intending to be a doctor. He would become the equivalent of a junior surgeon during his time in school and received his apothecary’s license in 1816. However, Keats was also drawn towards another aspiration.
In 1814, Keats authored his first poem, An Imitation of Spenser. Since his work as a surgeon required large amounts of focus, the poet was not left with much time to concentrate on writing. Inspired by Romantic poets like Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt, John Keats resolved to focus on his aspiring career as a writer. While training at Guy’s Hospital, the poet devoted his focus to poetry, eventually leaving the program in 1817.
In May 1816, Leigh Hunt published Keats’s poem, O Solitude, in his magazine, The Examiner. This was the poet’s first printed poem. John Keats would continue to publish poetry during this period, as Hunt further ingratiated the aspiring writer into London’s literary circles. These connections introduced Keats to contemporaries like Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Hamilton Reynolds.
The Keats Family Disease: Tuberculosis
After leaving the hospital, John Keats moved to Hampstead in April 1817 with his brother George, where the two cared for their brother Tom, who was sick with tuberculosis. During his time in Hampstead, Keats continued to write poems and develop new poetic techniques. Here, the poet worked with elder Romantic poets like Samuel Taylor Coleridge. George Keats and his wife emigrated to the United States in June 1818. Thomas Keats died of tuberculosis in December of that year.
John Keats moved to Wentworth Place following the death of his brother, where he wrote some of his most influential poetry. Keats is famous for writing six odes, his most well-known poems. Five of those six odes were written during his stay in 1819. However, towards the end of the year, the poet began showing symptoms of tuberculosis.
The Death of John Keats
Beginning in 1820, John Keats showed severe symptoms of consumption (or tuberculosis). A cure for the disease would not be developed for another century. Keats began coughing up blood on February 3, to which he remarked: “I know the color of that blood! It is arterial blood. I cannot be deceived in that color. That drop of blood is my death warrant. I must die.”
Medical treatments involved regular bleeding, a common practice of the time that most likely hastened Keats’s downturn. His doctors advised him to move to a warmer climate. In September, Keats and his friend Joseph Severn boarded a ship for Italy. However, they would not arrive in Rome until November 14. Here, Keats continued to receive bleeding treatments and was put on a starvation diet to lessen blood flow to his stomach, where his problems were thought to originate.
The last weeks of Keats’s life were marked by terrible pain and agony. On the trip to Italy, the poet convinced Severn to buy a vial of opium. It is believed John Keats intended to commit suicide, but his plan was discovered, and the drugs were confiscated. As his pain intensified, Severn and his doctor refused to give Keats laudanum (opium).
Joseph Severn devotedly cared for his friend into 1821, as Keats entered the final stages of tuberculosis. In a letter, he wrote: “…about four, the approaches of death came on. [Keats said] “Severn – I – lift me up – I am dying – I shall die easy; don’t be frightened – be firm, and thank God it has come.” I lifted him up in my arms. The phlegm seem’d boiling in his throat, and increased until eleven, when he gradually sank into death, so quiet, that I still thought he slept.”
John Keats died in Rome on February 22, 1821, from tuberculosis. An autopsy revealed Keats’s lung had all but disintegrated. He was only 25. At his request, his tombstone in Italy reads: Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water. Despite dying in obscurity, the poetry of John Keats has become some of the most lauded and studied works in the English language.
10 John Keats Quotes
1. I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.
2. Scenery is fine – but human nature is finer.
3. I love you the more in that I believe you had liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.
4. My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.
5. The poetry of the earth is never dead.
6. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard, are sweeter.
7. Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
8. Poetry should… should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
9. The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.
10. I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion – I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more – I could be martyred for my religion – Love is my religion – I could die for that.
Notable John Keats Poems
Sleep and Poetry (1816)
Endymion: A Poetic Romance (1817)
Hyperion (Unfinished, 1818)
When I have fears that I may cease to be (1818)
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art (1819)
The Eve of Saint Mark (Unfinished, 1819)
The Eve of St. Agnes (1819)
The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream (Unfinished, 1819)
La Belle Dame sans Merci (1819)
Lamia (1819)
Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819)
Ode on Indolence (1819)
Ode on Melancholy (1819)
Ode to a Nightingale (1819)
To Autumn (1819)
Today in Writing: October 31 – Daily Writing Exercise
Now that you have done some reading, it is time to write. Aspiring writers should look to the stories from Today in Writing: October 31 and John Keats’s life for inspiration. Read his quotes and study his poems to understand the poet’s writing style.
Find a topic and freewrite for 10 minutes. Before receiving any acclaim for his poetic masterpieces, John Keats’s life was tragically cut short by tuberculosis. Despite never being recognized while alive, Keats has become one of the most well-known and respected poets of the Romantic era. Aspiring writers should pay homage to the poet’s prophetic prose and start writing.
Don’t let any opportunity to write go to waste. Aspiring writers: Practice your writing today. Celebrate Today in Writing History October 31.
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