Life of John Keats: His Life and Poetry, His Friends, Critics and After-FameColvin, Sidney
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Life of John Keats: His Life and Poetry, His Friends, Critics and After-Fame
Colvin, Sidney
Keats, John, 1795-1821; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
Foremost among my scholarly helpers at home has been my friend Professor
W. P. Ker. For information and suggestions in answer to enquiries of one
kind or another I am indebted to Professor Israel Gollancz and Mr Henry
Bradley; to Professor Ernest Weekley, the best living authority on
surnames; to Mr A. H. Bullen; to Mr Falconer Madan and Mr J. W. Mackail;
to Mr Thomas J. Wise; to Mr H. C. Shelley; to Mr J. D. Milner, Director
of the National Portrait Gallery; and to my former colleague Mr A. H.
Smith, Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum. Mr
George Whale supplied me with full copies of and comments on the entries
concerning Keats in the books of Guy's Hospital. Dr Hambley Rowe of
Bradford put at my disposal the results, unfortunately not yet
conclusive, of the researches made by him as a zealous Cornishman on
Keats's possible Cornish descent. I must not omit thanks to Mr Emery
Walker for his skill and pains in preparing the illustrations for my
book. With reference to these, I may note that the head from the
portrait painted by Severn in 1859 and now in Lord Crewe's possession
was chosen for colour reproduction as frontispiece because it is the
fullest in colouring and, though done from memory so long after the
poet's death, to my mind the most satisfying and convincing in general
air of any of the extant portraits. Of the miniature done by Severn from
life in 1818, copied and recopied by himself, Charles Brown and others,
and made familiar by numberless reproductions in black and white, the
original, now deposited by the Dilke Trustees in the National Portrait
Gallery, has the character of a monochrome touched with sharp notes or
suggestions of colour in the hair, lips, hands, book, etc. I have
preferred not to repeat either this or the equally well known--nay,
hackneyed--and very distressing death-bed drawing made by Severn at
Rome. The profile from Haydon's life-mask of the poet is taken, not,
like most versions of the same mask, from the plaster, but from an
electrotype made many years ago when the cast was fresh and showing the
structure and modellings of the head more subtly, in my judgment, than
the original cast itself in its present state. Both cast and electrotype
are in the National Portrait Gallery. So is the oil-painting of Keats
seated reading, begun by Severn soon after the poet's death and finished
apparently two years later, which I have reproduced, well known though
it is, partly for its appositeness to a phrase in one of his letters to
his sister. Besides the portraits of Keats, I have added from
characteristic sources those of the two men who most influenced him at
the outset of his career, Leigh Hunt and Haydon. A new feature in my
book is provided by the reproductions of certain works of art, both
pictures and antiques, which can be proved or surmised to have struck
and stimulated his imagination. The reproductions of autographs, one of
his own and one of Haydon's, speak for themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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