On the rainy afternoon of Thursday 23 January, Year 13 English Literature students were given the exciting opportunity to visit Keats House in Hampstead, for an in depth analysis of poet John Keats’ life and poems.  John Keats was an English poet from the second generation of Romantic poets, alongside Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley.  Today, Keats is considered one of the Romantic era’s greatest poets, despite his poems having been in publication for less than four years before he died.

During a tour, students were free to explore rooms and discover artefacts directly from Keats’ life, which Rachel W, 13 Bow stated she “absolutely loved”.  Furthermore, students were given a timeline explanation of Keats’ life and career, as well as interesting facts about the time in which he lived. “Going to Keats House made me have a greater appreciation of the historical context about his poems,” explained Nikita S, 13 Walbrook after listening to an expert lecture on Keats living in the 1800s.

Students particularly enjoyed hearing about Keats’ relationship with Fanny Brawne, who was living next door.  They became secretly engaged in October 1819, but Keats soon discovered he was suffering from tuberculosis and so their opportunities to meet became limited, and they resorted to communicating by a large window in his living room.  Keats died at the young age of twenty five.

Although Keats lived in Hampstead for less than twenty one months, he wrote some of his most famous poems there.  For example, Ode to a Nightingale, a morbid exploration of an interrelationship between the inevitability of death and a hope for freedom.  Having studied this poem in class, student Amelia M, 13 Ludgate described being able to stand just where he wrote it as simply “mesmerising”.

Interestingly, Keats’ poetry was not considered particularly significant at its first publication.  Critics were highly sceptical of his “vulgar” writing style and adaptive rhyme schemes, one critic telling him “it is better to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet”, ultimately suggesting he go back to other work.  Moreover, before his untimely death, Keats requested “here lies one whose name was writ in water” to be written on his tombstone as he quite literally did not think his name was going to last.  However, his close friend Joseph Severn did not fulfil this request.  Students found it particularly interesting that Keats would never truly know the success of his poetry after his death.

Overall, the trip was an enriching experience for students as it permitted a deeper understanding of John Keats’ life and career, beyond the scope of the A Level curriculum.