A look at John Keats life

'He is made one with Nature: there is heard
His voice in all her music; from the moan
Of thunder to the song of night's sweet bird;
He is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
Which wields the world with never wearied love,
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.

He is a portion of the loveliness
Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear
His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there
All new successions to the forms they wear.'

These lines are from an elegy by Shelley on the death of Keats. 

 John Keats was born in Moorfields on October 29th 1796. At the age of nine Keats lost his father, and not long after, he lost his mother as well.  Keats was the oldest of three sons and one daughter.  He was educated at the Rev Mr clarke's school at Enfield, and later on apprenticed to Mr Hammond, a surgeon, in Church Street Edmonton.  After the usual term of years with Mr Hammond, Keats became a student at Guy's Hospital where he was indefaticable in his application to anatomy, medicine, and natural history. Though Keats was born to be a poet, he ignored his birthright until he had reached the age of nineteen.  In earlier years his free times would not be spent reading works of imagination, neither had he attempted, nor thought of writting a single line.  With keats being so passionate and had such an imagination it was strange that no indication of those qualities appeared in his young years.  It was the 'Faery Queen' that awakened his genius.  In Spenser's fairy land he was changed completely. He attempted to imitate the stanza, and succeded.  From that moment he began to read and ponder over other poets.  Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare were his household gods. 

John Keats was one of the key figures in the second generation of the romantic movement, even though his work had just been in publication for only four years before his death.  During his life, his poems were not generally well received by critics, however, after his death, his reputation grew to the extent that by the end of the 19th century he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets.