When was john keats die

More to the point, how would he say it? He spoke like the son of an innkeeper, and like a man who had trained as a surgeon and an apothecary, which is what he was. Speech patterns, like shoddy shoes and buckteeth, are classic fodder for schoolyard bullies, and Keats was not spared.

No one likes a bad review, but these attacks felt personal. Motion describes Keats at the end of his life as increasingly depressed and fixated on his critics. On the advice of his doctors, he had travelled to Italy, by boat, in search of a milder climate.

The journey there was disastrous: an outbreak of typhus in England meant that Keats was forced to quarantine for ten days on a small, crowded vessel. In Rome, Keats holed up in a rented room at the base of the Spanish Steps. He was put on a starvation diet of bread and anchovies, and told to relax. It upset him to read, or to write a letter. Why is he now so well loved? Two hundred years ago, on 23 February , John Keats died. He had suffered from tuberculosis since early and, after months of distress and pain, finally succumbed to the disease at the age of just Keats was a failed medical student, who had swapped operations for odes after realising his poetic talent.

He had been writing for six years and publishing his poetry for four. Contrary to popular belief, Keats was not considered a renowned poet during his lifetime. His verses were vilified in the press and his works had failed to sell. All that was left of the poet were his words and the memories held dear by those he left behind. Keats himself believed his poetical efforts were for nothing. He did not, however, and his name lives on. Poor Dr. That said, the therapy Keats endured remains shocking: starvation by means of a diet consisting of one anchovy and a piece of toast per day, multiple bleedings and too much laudanum tincture of opium.

Some have claimed that John Keats died of disappointment over the poor literary reception his poems received. I cannot be deceived in that color. That drop of blood is my death warrant.

I must die. Tragic though his premature death was, there can be no doubt that his choice to abandon clinical practice for poetry did not harm or hold back medical progress in the slightest degree. Any sawbones could open a vein or prescribe a powerful emetic. But only one man contained the literary power to compose a line like this:.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all Ye know on earth, and all you need to know. Howard Markel writes a monthly column for the PBS NewsHour, highlighting momentous historical events that continue to shape modern medicine. Support Provided By: Learn more. Friday, Nov The Latest. World Agents for Change. Health Long-Term Care. For Teachers. NewsHour Shop.