What are features of Romaticism in Keats's poems?

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty: that's all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." ~ Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" 

This sums up the overall mood of a Keats' poem, yet there is so much more to Keats. 

He was, first and foremost, a romantic dreamer.  Everything seems beautiful under his pen, even the rockiest and most sorrowful subjects.  Love and death became one desire for Keats, especially towards the end of his 25 years on earth. 

In a letter to his lover Fanny Brawne, Keats writes, "I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your Loveliness and the hour of my death ... I hate the world: it batters too much the wings of my self-will, and would I could take a sweet poison from your lips to send me out of it." (1818) 

Comparing his poems and letters, it is a surprise that Keats was not happy in this world.  Many of his poems deal with sorrow, but even these are brightened by his natural references to earth, nature, wildlife, love, and beauty.

There are many aspects of sheer Romanticism in Keats' work. He only wrote for 5 years, but in those 5 years he (posthumously) became one of the world's greatest writers.  What does his work show to be Romantic style?

• Keats' incorporated nature into his poems.  He does not generally write about nature, but he uses it as a device to make his poetry romantic and gentle.  Nature v. Culture is the number one rule of Romanticism.


• Keats was very poor.  His poetry received harsh reviews while he was alive.  He spent much of his time hiking, walking, and moving through nature.  He was, indeed, and outsider: a very important element in Romanticism.


• Despite his depression, Keats wrote endlessly on love and beauty.  These two themes overwhelm his work.  They are mixed with his feelings of depression, but they have become what Keats is most remembered for.  It is not that Keats was superficial: he sought out beauty, but not the beauty of gold and diamonds.  For him, love and nature were beautiful.  The stars were beautiful.  Death was sublime.  Fanny Brawne, above all, was beautiful.


• Keats was heavily influenced by ancient mythology; texts by Homer, Dante, Virgil, Shakespeare, etc.; fellow Romantic poets Shelley and Byron; Latin; and classical poetic form.  He wrote many "epic story poems" such as HYPERION and ENDYMION.  These are all habits of the Romantics.

Keats had a deep love for Shakespeare.  Every year, he celebrated Shakespeare's birthday, and he would request that his friends send him letters that day with quotes from the Bard in them.  He longed to be a playwright on the level of Shakespeare; this was, in fact, his great ambition.  He began to write plays, but they remained unfinished: he died in 1821 at age 25. 

Death, sorrow, love, and nature are signature traits of the Romantics.  Appeciaton for earlier writers, mythology, and Latin are comon themes in Romanticsim. Keats followed all of these "rules" and epitomizes Romanticism at its best.