PBS Digs Into John Keats's Letters

At PBS Newshour, Alison Thoet visits The Keats Letters Project, an initiative bringing together 19th century English poet John Keats's letters to family and friends, written some 200 years ago, into an interactive digital archive. To contextualize the letters, the archive includes commentary written by scholars. "Keats penned the letters between 1815 and 1821, the year he died, at the age of 25" Thoet explains. Let's pick up with her there: 

In his letters, Keats wrote to his brothers George and Tom about daily life, discussed poetry with friend Benjamin Bailey and later expressed his love to the young Fanny Brawne.

The letters show Keats “as a young man about town, writing poetry, living life and full of excitement and ambition,” said Brian Rejack, a professor of English at Illinois State University, one of six scholars who collaborated on this project. “He’s very busy in these early letters and we try to capture Keats’ life … without having these reminders that he is going to die.”

The Keats Letters Project site also includes guest commentary on the letters from scholars, poets, professors and Keats fans.

Keats, who did not formally study as a poet, but instead trained as an apothecary, published his first poem in 1816 at the age of 20. He turned to poetry as a personal refuge from his medical work and the deaths of his parents and brother Tom, whom he writes to in his letters. His work drew elements and style from the great poets of the time and from his friend, the poet Leigh Hunt. But Keats made little money and died before his poetry became famous.

Read more at PBS Newshour. (Be sure to check out the section following Thoet's article, with a few of The Keats Letters Project's favorite Keats poems.)