K is for Keats

I was flipping through the movie channels one afternoon and came across a movie called “Bright Star”. For those of you who do not know (like me), Bright Star is the title of a poem written by John Keats. I happened upon this movie somewhere towards the end, but I do know that it documents his life and, more importantly, his relationship with Fanny Brawne, the inspiration for Bright Star.

We read some of his poems at school (Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn comes to mind here) but beyond that, I have no other knowledge of him. But the character of Keats was so beautifully portrayed by Ben Whishaw (I mean, I was completely convinced of his love for Fanny, despite the fact that Mr Whishaw is not attracted to girls) and it led me to do a little bit of research on the poet.

I was amazed to discover that he studied medicine and had received his apothecary’s licence, which allowed him to practice as an apothecary, surgeon and physician. He left the medical field because it interfered with his writing (brave chap) and composed a number of poems and wrote many letters.

Unsurprisingly, I am more drawn to his letters, than his poems. “They glitter with humour and critical intelligence. Born of an ‘unself-conscious stream of consciousness,’ they are impulsive, full of awareness of his own nature and his weak spots.” The romantic that I am is naturally drawn to the letters he wrote to Fanny. Reading them showed me how powerful words can be and inspired courage in me, who, as a fledgling writer, is extremely self-conscious and afraid still to display her weak spots.

Sadly, he did not linger long in this world. But for me, John Keats is the perfect embodiment of the following words from Virginia Woolf:

“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.”