Chapter 9

Influence of Spenser discussed; flimsiness of Keats's first volume; early sonnets; "Endymion"; Shelley's criticisms of this poem; detailed argument of the poem; estimate of "Endymion" as to invention and execution; estimate of "Isabella"; of "The Eve of St. Agnes"; of "The Eve of St. Mark"; of "Hyperion"; of "Otho the Great"; of "Lamia"; "La Belle Dame sans Merci" quoted and estimated; Keats's five great odes--extracts; "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"; imagination in verbal form distinctive of Keats; discussion of the term "faultless" applied to Keats; details of execution in the "Ode to a Nightingale"; other odes, sonnets, and lyrics; treatment of women in Keats's last volume; his references to "swooning"; his sensuousness and its correlative sentiment; superiority of Shelley to Keats; final remarks as to the quality of Keats's poetry. 163

INDEX 211

NOTE.

In all important respects I leave this brief "Life of Keats" to speak for itself. There is only one point which I feel it needful to dwell upon. In the summer of 1886 I was invited to undertake a life of Keats for the present series, and I assented. Some while afterwards it was publicly announced that a life of Keats, which had been begun by Mr. Sidney Colvin long before for a different series, would be published at an early date. I read up my materials, began in March 1887 the writing of my book, finished it on June 3rd, and handed it over to the editor. On June 10th Mr. Colvin's volume was published. I at once read it, and formed a high opinion of its merits, and I found in it some new details which could not properly be ignored by any succeeding biographer of the poet. I therefore got my MS. back, and inserted here and there such items of fresh information as were really needful for the true presentment of my subject-matter. In justice both to Mr. Colvin and to myself I drew upon his pages for only a minimum, not a maximum, of the facts which they embody; and in all matters of opinion and criticism I left my MS. exactly as it stood. The reader will thus understand that the present "Life of Keats" is, in planning, structure, execution, and estimate, entirely independent of Mr. Colvin's; but that I have ultimately had the advantage of consulting Mr. Colvin's book as one of my various sources of information--the latest and within its own lines the completest of all.

LIFE OF KEATS.