CONSUMING DESIRE FOR THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

Over the centuries the ancient capital of the world has exerted a powerful attraction on tourists, and especially on writers who have come to seek inspiration among its ruins. Traveling from distant towns that had once been under Roman sway, they came to view the dead city, to mourn the fall of its great empire and to grieve over he decadence of its church.

Severn portrayed Shelley writing among the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla.1845.

Rome’s most notable literary visitor came to the city not for literary inspiration but to save his life. John keats arrived in Italy in 1819, on his twenty-fifth birthday, dying from the consumption that had already carried off his mother and a brother. Keats was a doctor, although he had abandoned that career for poetry; and he was able to diagnose his case and predict its course from the first moment he coughed up blood. He had just published the odes that would make him immortal; but they had not been well received, and in the last months of his life his greatest pain came from the fear that he would not live ”among the English poets”.

”Keats’s confessions made Severn believe that the poet’s problems were caused as much by love as physical disease. This opinion was already shared by Keats’s friends and doctor, and indeed Keats himself believed it. In the text of the letter to Brown, Keats had written: ‘My dear Brown, I should have had her when I was in health, and I should have remained well’. Interestingly, Keats also believed his younger brother Tom had died as much from a broken heart as consumption. The power of love in Keats’s universe was thus life-altering, and life-threatening. This belief gave Severn some optimism since heartache was not as alarming as consumption. But he was disturbed by the intensity of Keats’s feelings, and how they affected his health.”

This sketch was made by Joseph Severn as he watched over the dying poet at 26 Piazza di Spagna, Rome. The inscription at the bottom is in Severn's hand, and reads (in partial shorthand): '28 Janry 3 o'clock mng. Drawn to keep me awake - a deadly sweat was on him all this night.' Keats passed away on Friday, 23 February 1821, around 11:00 pm. This is the last known portrait of the poet.

He had been invited to Italy by Shelly and his wife, who were staying at Pisa. They had recently left Rome, where they had been seeing their three year old son fall sick and die. But Keats ignored their invitation; he had never really liked nor enjoyed his company. He resolved to go to Italy, but remained vague about his plans to visit Pisa.

Accompanied by his friend, the painter Joseph Severn,he went almost directly to Rome and took rooms with a view of the Spanish Steps. His first weeks were pleasant enough. In the warm Roman sunshine Keats seemed to be doing better. His rooms were comfortable, and he met an agreeable group of English visitors with whom he socialized. But the irritability and nervousness that accompany the final stages of tuberculosis soon began to prey on Keats spirits. He had always been a sociable person, but he now refused to go out anymore for strolls in the Pincio Gardens. He blamed Napoleon’s sister Pauline, the Princess Borghese, for this; he was annoyed, and doubtless jealous, because she was flirting with one of his companions, a tall and handsome English lieutenant. He himself was short and had always been sensitive about it.

Joseph Severn, John Keats. 1819

”This was yet another aspect of the final tragedy – his poetic impulse was stirred and he was forced to deny it. Severn later remarked that this was his friend’s greatest pain. Soon enough, Keats could not ‘bear any books’ either, for they were painful reminders of immortality. Severn would occasionally read to him (Keats requested Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Holy Dying for ‘some faith – some hope – something to rest on now’) but the poet would not read himself, nor write to anyone.

This new calm impressed both Severn and Clarke; the doctor remarked that Keats was ‘too noble an animal to be allowed to sink.’ But there was little to do for him now. There were occasional flashes of his old humor and wit. Their dinners were purchased from a nearby restaurant and always badly cooked. One day, with a mischievous smile at Severn, Keats took the dishes and proceeded to empty them out the sitting-room window. ‘Now you’ll see, we’ll have a decent dinner.’ Barely half an hour passed before a new – and delicious – dinner was delivered. Afterwards, their meals were prompt and edible.”

ern3.jpg" alt="John Keats by Joseph Severn oil on canvas, 1821-1823, dated 1821 22 1/4 in. x 16 1/2 in. (565 mm x 419 mm) Given by S. Smith Travers, 1859" width="241" height="325" />

John Keats by Joseph Severn oil on canvas, 1821-1823, dated 1821 22 1/4 in. x 16 1/2 in. (565 mm x 419 mm) Given by S. Smith Travers, 1859

Early in December, 1819, Keats had an attack of coughing and began to spit blood again. He decided to commit suicide; he had seen consumptives die before. But Severn caught him with a bottle of poison in his hand and snatched it away. For weeks, as his friend grew weaker, Severn watched by the bedside, tending the patient carefully and writing frantically to England to ask for money.

”But on 10 December, Severn returned from an early walk and woke Keats. Immediately, the poet began to cough and then vomit blood, about two cupfuls. Clark wassummoned and promptly bled him. The loss of blood dizzied and confused Keats. When Clark had left, he left his bed to stumble around the rooms, telling Severn, ‘This day shall be my last.’ His companion feared suicide and immediately hid all the sharp objects he could find as well as the laudanum Clarke prescribed. Keats remained delirious for the rest of the day, until finally another violent hemorrhage and bleeding weakened him into calm. Over the next nine days, he suffered five severe hemorrhages and continued bleedings by Clark. The doctor visited constantly and put Keats on a strict diet, mostly fish. Keats begged for food, saying they were starving him.”

joseph Severn. Ariel Riding on a Bat

Early in his life Keats had abandoned faith in Christianity. But now that he was dying, he grew frightened and depressed at his lack of faith, that ”last cheap comfort, which every rogue and fool may have.” Even the noble example of Socrates, one of his idols, failed to console him. Patiently, he described to Severn the consumptive’s final agony so that he would not be shocked by what he was about to witness.

”Severn tried to comfort his friend, but Keats was now past comfort. He rambled on about Tom’s illness and death, and – even more troubling to the devout Severn – denied any Christian comfort. The painter described the scenes for eager friends in England: ‘For he says in words that tear my very heartstrings – “miserable wretch I am – this last cheap comfort which every rogue and fool have – is deny’d me in my last moments – why is this – O! I have serv’d every one with my utmost good – yet why is this – I cannot understand this” – and then his chattering teeth.’ And later, ‘I think a malignant being must have power over us – over whom the Almighty has little or no influence – yet you know Severn I cannot believe in your book – the Bible. …Here am I, with desperation in death that would disgrace the commonest fellow.’ When Severn finished a letter to Keats’s publisher Taylor, the poet told him to add a postscript: ‘I shall soon be in a second edition – in sheets – and cold press.’

Joseph Severn, Ophelia. 1831

The slow, sad death in a foreign city was breaking Keats’s wonderful spirit. The frantic months of losing his brothers, falling in love, writing perfectly at last and knowing it – they were too painful to contemplate. All the time spent reflecting upon ‘the vale of soul-making’ had led to nothing but a poverty-stricken death far from everything he loved. Poor Severn could not hope to break this depression.”

On February 23 he died. The house was fumigated and the furniture burned, as the Roman quarantine laws demanded. The body was buried in the Protestant cemetery, under a gravestone showing a Grecian lyre with half its strings broken, a device that had been designed for it by Severn at Keat’s request. When Shelley heard of the death, he was outraged. He attributed it, romantic that he was, to the cruelty of the English reviewers who had mocked Keat’s work. In ”Adonais” , Shelly’s elegy for Keats, he harangued critics who had questioned Keat’s talent. ”Go thou to Rome,” he admonished; the doubters would see immediately that the poet’s grave conferred distinction on the city.

This is John Everett Millais’ portrayal of the tragic martyr, painted in 1852

The same could be said of Shelley himself after he drowned a year later, carrying a book of Keat’s poetry, which was burned with him on his funeral pyre. Supposedly only his heart was saved, snatched from the fire by Lord Byron. That was carried to Rome and buried near the body of Keats and the grave of Shelley’s child.Shelley, like John Keats, was also  “high romantic,” meaning one of the romantic poets in the generation following Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge.And,  like Keats, Shelley crafts himself into the artist who burns with his creative spirit, allowing his poetry to consume him. In many ways,both Keats and Shelley represents everything you either love or hate about romanticism.

Keats’s passing created a rift amongst his friends. As his fame as a poet grew, they told competing stories of his life and often exaggerated their influence upon his work. It became commonplace to view Keats as a tragic soul, too sensitive for this world and driven from it by harsh critical reviews. Keats himself would have been furious at such a description. Rarely has a poet so thoroughly captured life in all its natural glory, without affectation or exaggeration. And rarely, too, has a man lived such an admirable and passionate life. He once remarked hopefully, ‘I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death.’ At a mere twenty-five years of age, John Keats achieved this dream.

Leon Herbo. La Charmeuse 1890

The combination of happiness and despair, ecastasy and agony, best characterizes Keat’s work, particularly his odes. Although the combination of these moods mirrors the emotional tensions in his life at the time, he also uses his inner strife to explore the nature of joy and despair inherent in romanticism itself. Many of his poems indicate a tension in romantic poetry and philosophy. Many dichotomies highlight these tensions; the desire to emotionally express oneself and the consequences of doing so; the desire to form a union with nature and the reality of the human’s division from nature; the desire for permanence in a world that refuses to keep still; a desire for “immortality” and the reality and fear of “mortality.”

Most of these dichotomies include a key word: “desire.” The notion of desire,what desire means, how desire inspires and drives literature,becomes a heated issue in romanticism,  and continues until today often under other monikers such as needs and wants. Keats reveals the joys of deisre, and the disappointment and sense of incompletion that follows.

''English poet John Keats' death mask is displayed at his house on Wednesday in London,. The former home of renowned English poet John Keats is to reopen to the public after recent refurbishment. Keats lived in the house from 1818 to 1820 and it was here that he wrote 'Ode to a Nightingale' and fell in love with Fanny Brawne, the girl next door. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

”It was only a week or so into the voyage that Severn began to suspect the truth. Keats, for all of his outward signs of bonhomie, grew feverish during the night, coughed hard and brought up blood. Perhaps most disturbing to the gregarious and cheerful Severn, Keats’s physical anguish was consuming him mentally. He often stood by himself, staring silently over the dark water. As Severn wrote, ‘He was often so distraught, with moreover so sad a look in his eyes, sometimes a starved, haunting expression that it bewildered me.’

Poor Severn was torn. He regarded Keats with something approaching awe, well aware of the younger man’s talent – aware, too, that a few London friends thought he may become a rival to Shakespeare. But during the voyage Severn found Keats withdrawn and difficult to reach. The silence reminded Severn of the lack of true friendship between the men. Yet the silence was better than Keats’s sudden and unexpected outpouring of feeling when they arrived at Naples. Suddenly, Severn became aware of another reason for Keats’s mental anguish – it wasn’t simply his ill health, it was also an ill-fated love affair with a young woman in London named Fanny Brawne. Severn knew of Fanny and Keats’s flirtations with her, but he did not know that she and Keats were engaged. The engagement was known only to Fanny’s mother, who had helped nurse the poet in London.”