Keats, John, 1795-1821; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
"By this time our readers must be pretty well satisfied as to the
meaning of his sentences and the structure of his lines. We now
present them with some of the new words with which, in imitation
of Mr. Leigh Hunt, he adorns our language.
"We are told that turtles _passion_ their voices; that an arbour
was _nested_, and a lady's locks _gordianed_ up; and, to supply
the place of the nouns thus verbalized, Mr. Keats, with great
fecundity, spawns new ones, such as men-slugs and human
_serpentry_, the _honey-feel_ of bliss, wives prepare
_needments_, and so forth.
"Then he has formed new verbs by the process of cutting off their
natural tails, the adverbs, and affixing them to their foreheads.
Thus the wine out-sparkled, the multitude up-followed, and night
up-took; the wind up-blows, and the hours are down-sunken. But,
if he sinks some adverbs in the verbs, he compensates the
language with adverbs and adjectives which he separates from the
parent stock. Thus a lady whispers _pantingly_ and close, makes
_hushing_ signs, and steers her skiff into a _ripply_ cove, a
shower falls _refreshfully_, and a vulture has a _spreaded_ tail.
"But enough of Mr. Leigh Hunt and his simple neophyte. If any one
should be bold enough to purchase this 'Poetic Romance,' and so
much more patient than ourselves as to get beyond the first book,
and so much more fortunate as to find a meaning, we entreat him
to make us acquainted with his success. We shall then return to
the task which we now abandon in despair, and endeavour to make
all due amends to Mr. Keats and to our readers."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account