Keats - Hardcover

Motion, Andrew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374181004 ISBN 13: 9780374181000

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1998

Synopsis

Examines the short life of nineteenth-century English poet John Keats, stressing the political and social influences that shaped his world and his literature

About this title

Review:

Whitbread Prize-winning biographer Andrew Motion (Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life) aims to broaden our understanding of John Keats (1795-1821) by paying close attention to the historical context in which he wrote and the political opinions he voiced. The poet was "of a sceptical and republican school," Motion argues, and Keats's work reflected his experiences "not just as a private individual, but socially and politically as well." This bracing reinterpretation stresses the vigor of Keats's character as well as his verse, burying for good the sentimental cliché of a sickly dreamer concerned only with art for art's sake.

About the Author:

Andrew Motion was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009; he is Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and co-founder of the online Poetry Archive. He has received numerous awards for his poetry, and has published four celebrated biographies. His group study The Lamberts won the Somerset Maugham Award and Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life - his authorised life of Philip Larkin - won the Whitbread Prize for Biography. His memoir, In the Blood (2006), was described as 'the most moving and exquisitely written account of childhood loss I have ever read' in the Independent on Sunday. Andrew Motion was knighted for his services to poetry in 2009.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0374181004
• ISBN 13: 9780374181000
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 636