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The Complete Poems of John Keats (Modern Library)

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Beauty with a Capital B
my fav. poem - ode on melancholy (analysis)
Read it, then see it!
One of Britain's Brightest Stars
Puzzled...

The Complete Poems of John Keats (Modern Library)
John Keats
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0679601082
Release Date: 1994-04-26

Book Description

'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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"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. In the faculty of naturalistic interpretation, in what we call natural magic, he ranks with Shakespeare."
   MATTHEW ARNOLD

Jacket portrait by William Hilton, after Joseph Severn, courtesy ofThe Granger Collection, New York

Customer Reviews:

Beauty with a Capital B.......2004-07-02

Keats was the Romantic poet who cared most about art and beauty. He didn't allow himself to get mixed up in religion and politics like Shelley or Byron. But in quiet ways, he did comment on political, religious, aesthetic, and sexual beliefs, sometimes in ways that were less traditional than his poetic style. Above all, he was supremely conscious of beauty in the world, as well as the world's suffering.

David Rehak
author of "Poems From My Bleeding Heart"

my fav. poem - ode on melancholy (analysis).......2004-03-06

¡§She dwells with Beauty¡XBeauty that must die.¡¨

¡§His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might, and be among her cloudy trophies hung.¡¨

These beautiful lines are written by John Keats (1795-1821), one of the most talented Romantic poets on par with Shelley, Wordsworth, and Bryon. Why would a charismatic Romantic, who cherishes beauty and life, write such sad and crestfallen lines?

It all began in the summer of 1819 when Keats went on a tour of Scotland, where his first symptoms of tuberculosis emerged. However, at the same time, Keats became engaged to the love of his life, Fanny Brawne, a girl next door. Tragically, doctors diagnosed that the tuberculosis was eroding his health, and eventually would end the life of the brilliant poet. Due to this unfortunate calamity, his marriage with Fanny became an impracticality. Amidst his depression and misery, he wrote the poem ¡§Ode on Melancholy.¡¨

The theme of the ode is that Happiness is transient and when Joy passes, all that is left is the bitter core of Melancholy. The rendezvous with Melancholy is inevitable because it will always be there when delightful moments depart. Keats felt that one must embrace sorrow in order to fully experience pleasure. John Keats grasped this philosophy of life during his years of malady and encourages the reader to enjoy life when possible and be ready to come across Melancholy in certain stages of one¡¦s life.

Many people may have thought Keats as a successful and accomplished poet. However, Melancholy was his frequent visitor and deprived Keats of Happiness. Tuberculosis took the lives of his mother, his brother and eventually himself, but emotionally, Keats was marred by the criticism toward his works and the departure of his lover. It seemed that the author lost his faith to overcome Melancholy and decided to advise the readers to not fall victim but respectfully accept and not evade it. I believe that people who choose to end their lives become Melancholy¡¦s trophies because they help to spread the powers of sorrow and grief. By killing oneself, one will be leaving loved ones with burdens of Melancholy to bear, and therefore winning more ¡§cloudy trophies¡¨ for the Goddess. In conclusion, one should recognize that Melancholy will eventually appear and by being prepared to embrace the arrival of Melancholy one can truly taste the sweetness of Happiness.

Read it, then see it!.......2004-02-19

A wonderful companion book to "The Complete Poems of John Keats " is the photo-essay collection, "Walking North With Keats," which recreates a 44-day walking tour that the poet made with his writer-friend Charles Brown in 1818 through northern England, Ireland, and Scotland---which unfortunately was THE walk where he fell ill with the tuberculosis that would finally kill him at 25!

The author extensively, but joyfully, highlights Keats's early life, reviews the period's travel literature, photographs the locations & introduces Keats' odes & ballads as well as his letters written during the journey (which helps put into context the poems presented in this book)!

One of Britain's Brightest Stars.......2002-03-11

Next to Shakespeare I can not think of a Brittish poet who inspired me more than John Keats. His lyrical phrases, his sense of music and metaphor, and his visionary splendor dazzles one and leaves a reader in awe of his gift. My favorites are the Odes, especially the Ode To Psyche, and the Ode To A Nightingale. One can only wonder what great works might have come into existence from this great literary genius had he lived beyond the age of twenty six. Still, he did manage to distill from the heavens some of the finest poems of the English language.

Puzzled..........2001-02-27

Overall this book is a great value, as would any book be that contains so many of Keats poems and puts them in a durable binding at an attractive price. However, I'm puzzled by the first two lines in the poem, " La Belle Dame Sans Merci" that read, " Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,/ Alone and palely loitering; ". In every book I've ever seen this poem in, or these two lines quoted , including my college Literature Text book, they read, " O what can ail thee, knight at arms,/ Alone and palely loitering ? " There is no information to tell us what the text of the poems for this volume are based on. And, I seem unable to find an e-mail address from The Modern Library's Web Site so I can ask. I would accept a response from The Modern Library if they cared to comment( e-mail at: stephenmccoy@cbnnow.com )

Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats (Modern Library Classics)

Average customer rating:

Excellent For College Study or Independent Reading

Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats (Modern Library Classics)
John Keats
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Anthologies | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Shelley's Poetry and Prose (Norton Critical Edition)
The Major Works: Including The Prelude (Oxford World's Classics)
Lord Byron: The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics)
Selected Poetry of William Wordsworth (Modern Library Classics)
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

ASIN: 0375756698
Release Date: 2001-02-13

Book Description

Customer Reviews:

Excellent For College Study or Independent Reading.......2002-03-18

In his short life John Keats created some of the finest poetry in the English language. I have read his shorter poems and odes many times, not for study, but simply for enjoyment. I am not a Keats expert, but I can now easily recognize quotations from Keat's odes, sonnets, and other poems. I especially like "The Eve of St. Agnes", a story of romance and danger in a medieval setting that illustrates Keats' remarkable command of language.

Keats is not difficult, but footnotes help with archaic words and references to more obscure Greek mythology. I prefer to read Keats unaided, then read the footnotes (best if tucked away in an appendix), and then return and read the poem again. For longer poems I jump to footnotes more quickly.

Initially, the inexpensive Dover edition "Lyric Poems", was exactly what I needed. Later, as I tackled longer poetry like "Endymion", I migrated to more complete collections with commentary and footnotes.

Keats" works are widely available in hardcover and paperback. Which collection is best for college study or independent reading? I have two favorites, one by Penguin Classics and the other by Modern Library. Both are available in softcovers.

The first is "The Complete Poems" by Penguin Classics, edited by John Bernard and a standard choice for college classes. I have the second edition, 1977. Barnard's extensive footnotes and commentary are quite good and offset his somewhat brief introduction. Additionally, the appendix discusses textual variations in Keats' manuscripts and has a useful guide to Greek mythology names. The third edition, 1988, adds 20 pages of selected letters, Keats' notes on Milton's Paradise Lost, and his notes on a Shakespearean actor.

The second choice (my favorite) is the newly published "Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats", Modern Library 2001 edition (not the earlier 1994 hardcover version). Apparently as a direct challenge to Penguin Classics, this edition offers a longer introduction (22 pages) by Edward Hirsch and excellent footnotes (not too many, nor too few) by John Pollock. Also, as the title implies, it has selected letters by Keats, some 25 pages in total. Somewhat hidden in the appendix is commentary by six well-known literary critics such as T. S. Eliot, Mathew Arnold, and Keats' biographer Walter Jackson Bate. Lastly, the font is larger and more crisp in the Modern Library version (but is still quite acceptable in the Penguin edition).

Overall, I prefer Hirsch to Barnard, but both are good choices. Both are 5-stars.

Average customer rating:

greatest poet in English
The greatness of Keats
"...exceptionally keen sensitivity... "
Essential
The definitive edition of the poetry of Keats.

Complete Poems
John Keats , and Jack Stillinger
Manufacturer: Belknap Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Shelley's Poetry and Prose (Norton Critical Edition)
Lord Byron: The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics)
The Major Works: Including The Prelude (Oxford World's Classics)
Selected Letters (Oxford World's Classics)
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

ASIN: 0674154312

Book Description

Here is the first reliable edition of Keats's complete poems designed expressly for general readers and students.

Upon its publication in 1978, 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.

Customer Reviews:

greatest poet in English.......2005-04-16

Keats not only rivals Shakespeare in the beauty of his verse and the enchanting pictures he conjures but he is a cut above Shakespeare in the value of his art. The two odes 'on a nightingale' and 'on a Grecian urn' surpasses any piece of English literature I have come across so far. In its conception and philosophy ,in its expression of the ephemeral and impermanent nature of human life,its exposition of the permanance of ideal art and in its realization of the principle of the identity of truth and beauty it takes poetic thought to a plane that has never been approached, before or hence in English literature.

The greatness of Keats .......2004-11-04

One of the most musical of the great poets, whose language has a richness next to Shakespeare's, a most romantic soul whose annus mirabilis 1819 brought forth the five great odes, the tremendous long lines still memorable, Beauty is truth/Truth is Beauty' That is all ye know on earth And all ye need to know/ the pain of beauty or the beauty in pain in the nightingale's song, the lyric of the Grecian urn, the dying at twenty-six ' his name writ in water', much had he travelled in realms of gold, the great letters of negative capability, the ostler's son in a surgeon's hospital , Fanny Brawne, the alien corn of Ruth, all the music which would one day be heard again in the lines of Wallace Stevens, the complexity of beauty dying , hearing more than one voice as the page echoes on, one of the poets' poets surely , upon a peak in Darien, like all the great masters he only gains in rereading.

"...exceptionally keen sensitivity... ".......2004-02-02

There are two editions of Keats's Complete Poems which I
admire very much. This one edited by Jack Stillinger
and published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University
(ISBN: 0674154312) and the Penguin Classics, 3rd
edition, edited by John Barnard (ISBN: 0140422102).
I very much like the fuller notes and 6 Appendices
and the blunt, full, but suggestive chronology in
the Penguin, along with the complete writing and
publishing information fully written out rather
than abbreviated into initials one might have to
look up.

The importance of Jack Stillinger to Keats studies is cited
by both John Barnard (Penguin classics edition of -The
Complete Poems-) and Elizabeth Cook (Oxford World's
Classics edition of -The Major Poems-, ISBN:
0192840630). John Barnard says in his "Introduction":
"Jack Stillinger's -The Poems of John Keats- (Cambridge,
Mass., 1978) and his -The Text of John Keats- (Cambridge,
Mass., 1974) now give the fullest available account of
Keats's text, and are based on a comparision of the
printed texts with the wealth of manuscript material,
now mainly in American libraries."
And this edition compiled and edited by Jack
Stillinger has it glories, too. The first of these
is the excellent "Introduction," which has meaningful
insights in it concerning Keats, but which can also
be related to one's own experiences in life, though
Stillinger does not himself so relate them. A few
of these I like very much are: "Obviously Keats had
an exceptionally keen sensitivity to the minute
particulars of objects, sounds (as well as various
shades of silence), and motions in the world around
him." *** "He nursed his brother Tom in a lengthy
illness that ended in death on December 1st of this
year [1818], and as an added complication he met and
fell in love with Fanny Brawne. More than anything
else, I think, it is this combined experience of
suffering, death, and love all at once, against a
background of serious conversation, reading, and
thinking, that accounts for Keats's sudden rise to
excellence in his poetry."
There is no way, of course, to share Keats's
poetry in a review of this sort. To read it,
experience it, think about it, and realize
the Beauty -- and also the Truth -- in it
is the reward.
-- Robert Kilgore.

Essential.......2002-07-24

No personal library can be complete without at least a sampling of Keats, and this is the book that everyone should get. All the poems -- even the fragments -- are here, with line numbers included. The several appendices and letter excerpts make the collection even more valuable. If you are trying to decide which Keats collection to get, you have found the best.

The definitive edition of the poetry of Keats........2001-10-17

Jack Stillinger devoted much of his professional life to establishing the definitive texts of Keats's poems. This painstaking work has resulted in a number of changes to the poems. As to the quality of the poetry itself, at his best Keats approaches Shakespeare, as in the Odes. Stillinger is also an excellent teacher; I had his course on Keats 26 years ago, and it was fascinating. While the other reviewers have done a very good job of describing the beauty of Keats's poetry, one point Stillinger made about Keats as a person is worth repeating: Keats was the one English romantic poet that you would want to ask for advice about a personal problem you had. All the rest, Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley (especially!), and Byron would have given you advice that, if followed, would have been wildly impractical. Keats, as shown by his letters, was not pretentious and had a large degree of human decency and common sense. While these characteristics are not one usually associated with romantic poets, I think that they contribute to the strength of his poetry.

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Complete Poems of Keats and Shelley
John Keats
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Complete Poems of Keats and Shelley

Manufacturer: The Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000EVD502

Product Description

Complete poems of Keating and Shelley, with explanatory notes of Shelley's poems by Mrs. Shelley.

John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley Complete Poetical Works [With the explanatory notes of Shelley's poems by Mrs. Shelley]

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John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley Complete Poetical Works [With the explanatory notes of Shelley's poems by Mrs. Shelley]
John Keats , Percy Bysshe Shelley , and Mrs. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Manufacturer: Carlton House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Product Description

6 3/4 X 9 3/4 X 2 3/8

The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of Keats

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The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of Keats
John Keats
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HCQVMW

The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Keats

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The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Keats
John Keats
Manufacturer: The Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000F0ZT10

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Complete Poetry and Selected Prose
John Keats
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The COMPLETE POETRY And SELECTED PROSE Of JOHN KEATS. Edited, with an Introduction, by Harold Edgar Briggs.

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The COMPLETE POETRY And SELECTED PROSE Of JOHN KEATS. Edited, with an Introduction, by Harold Edgar Briggs.
John. [Mod Lib]. Keats
Manufacturer: The Modern Library,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MZE572

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