John Keats
31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821
John Keats (1795-1821) was an English Romantic poet whose work, though largely unrecognized in his short lifetime, became among the most celebrated in English literature. Trained as an apothecary-surgeon, he abandoned medicine for poetry and produced masterpieces including the great odes of 1819 before dying of tuberculosis in Rome at age 25.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with John Keats.
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- André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) Overlapped 26 years →
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) Overlapped 26 years →
- Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) Overlapped 26 years →
- Caroline Herschel (1750–1848) Overlapped 26 years →
Life events
John Keats was born in Moorgate, London, the eldest of four surviving children of Thomas Keats, a stable keeper, and Frances Jennings.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgKeats attended Reverend John Clarke's progressive school in Enfield, where he formed a formative friendship with the headmaster's son, Charles Cowden Clarke.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAfter leaving school, Keats was apprenticed to Thomas Hammond, a surgeon and apothecary in Edmonton, beginning his medical training.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgKeats registered as a medical student at Guy's Hospital in London in October 1815 and received his licence to practise as an apothecary in July 1816.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgKeats's first book, Poems, was published by Charles and James Ollier in London in March 1817 but attracted little attention.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgKeats's long poem Endymion, opening with the line 'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever', was published in 1818 and received harsh reviews from Tory critics.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgKeats became secretly engaged to Fanny Brawne, his Hampstead neighbour, in 1819; his illness and poverty prevented their marriage.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgIn the spring of 1819 Keats composed 'Ode to a Nightingale', 'Ode on a Grecian Urn', 'Ode on Melancholy' and other odes that became his most famous works.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgSuffering from advanced tuberculosis, Keats left England in September 1820 with his friend Joseph Severn, arriving in Rome in November.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgKeats died in his apartment beside the Spanish Steps in Rome at age 25 and was buried in the city's Protestant Cemetery.
Source: en.wikipedia.org