Selected Poems

by John Keats, John Barnard (Introduction), John Barnard (Noted by)

Overview

A selection of Keats's greatest poems

Over the course of his short life, John Keats (1795-1821) honed a raw talent into a brilliant poetic maturity. By the end of his brief career, he had written poems of such beauty, imagination and generosity of spirit, that he had - unwittingly - fulfilled his wish that he should ‘be among the English poets after my death’. This wide-ranging selection of Keats’s poetry contains youthful verse, such as his earliest known poem ‘Imitation of Spenser’; poems from his celebrated collection of 1820 - including ‘Lamia’, ‘Isabella’, ‘The Eve of St Agnes’, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Hyperion’ - and later celebrated works such as ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’. Also included are many poems considered by Keats to be lesser work, but which illustrate his more earthy, playful side and superb ear for everyday language.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140424478
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/25/2008
Series:	Penguin Classics Series
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	135,967
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.72(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

John Keats (1795-1821) is one of the greatest English poets and a key figure in the Romantic Movement. He has become the epitome of the young, beautiful, doomed poet. He wrote, among others, 'The Eve of St Agnes', 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci', 'Ode to a Nightingale' and 'To Autumn'. The group of five odes, which include 'Ode to a Nightingale', are ranked among the greatest short poems in the English language.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	ix
	Note on the Text	xvii
	Chronology	xix
	Lines Written on 29 May The Anniversary of the Restoration of Charles II	1
	On First Looking into Chapman's Homer	1
	To my Brothers	2
	Addressed to [Haydon]	2
	'I stood tip-toe upon a little hill'	3
	Sleep and Poetry	10
	Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition	22
	To Kosciusko	22
	'After dark vapours have oppressed our plains'	23
	To Leigh Hunt, Esq.	23
	On the Sea	24
	'The Gothic looks solemn'	25
	Endymion: A Poetic Romance	26
	Preface	26
	Book I	27
	Book II (extracts)	55
	Book III (extracts)	67
	Book IV (extracts)	79
	Nebuchadnezzar's Dream	87
	To Mrs Reynolds's Cat	88
	On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again	88
	'When I have fears that I may cease to be'	89
	To--('Time's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb')	89
	'O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind'	90
	To J. H. Reynolds, Esq.	91
	Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil	94
	On Visiting the Tomb of Burns	111
	A Song about Myself	112
	From Fragment of the 'Castle Builder'	115
	'And what is love? It is a doll dressed up'	116
	Hyperion. A Fragment	117
	The Eve of St Agnes	142
	The Eve of St Mark	154
	'Why did I laugh tonight? ...'	158
	Character of Charles Brown	159
	A Dream, after reading Dante's Episode of Paolo and Francesca	160
	La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad	160
	To Sleep	162
	'If by dull rhymes our English must be chained'	163
	Ode to Psyche	163
	On Fame (I)	165
	On Fame (II)	166
	'Two or three posies'	166
	Ode on a Grecian Urn	167
	Ode to a Nightingale	169
	Ode on Melancholy	172
	Ode on Indolence	173
	Lamia	175
Part I175
Part II186
	'Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art'	195
	'Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes'	196
	To Autumn	197
	The Fall of Hyperion. A Dream	198
Canto I198
Canto II211
	'What can I do to drive away'	213
	'This living hand, now warm and capable'	215
	'In after-time, a sage of mickle lore'	215
	Notes	216
	Index of First Lines	232