It is possible to think of John Keats as a member of the second generation of English Romantic poets. The two and a half decades that intervened from Wordsworth’s childhood to Keat’s mark a tremendous change in English life which an orderly procession of names may conceal. It was also a time when a literary career could make its appeal down the social scale than ever before.1
John Keats (1795-1821), actually, has experienced only a small period of this time, he has written all his most important poems within a period of three years, the major part of them – in 1819. It is assumed, John Keats has begun writing poems in 1814, so these are only six productive years till his death of tuberculosis. Besides them, Keats did not write poetry during his last year, so there are left only five of them altogether. Nevertheless, during such a short life he has created such poetry, that he was considered, along with Wordsworth, to be the Romantic poet of the 19th century.
Keats’s background was, at the time, definitely of the “lower” classes. He didn’t have any of the cultural and social advantages that many of his contemporary poets took for granted. Also, in Keats’s early life there was nothing to indicate a poetic talent. He had to be a self made poet or none at all.…
