Celebrating Keats: The Bicentenary, 2021

[Music] welcome to the bicentenary commemoration of the great english romantic poet john keats i'm barry smith director of the south downs poetry festival and working together with the university of chichester and the keats shelley memorial association we're putting together this video commemoration in this year of lockdown and social distancing normally we present our celebration from some pancreas church in eastgate chichester where john keats statue resides opposite the house where he lived when he stayed in churches we're delighted to be able to present a fantastic cast of performers in our commemoration we have actors rosie cavaliero and emily rose smith we have a contextual talk by professor fiona price a guide about the statue itself by the sculptor vincent gray and readings by south downs poets stephanie norgate camilla lambert jeremy page james simpson naomi foyle chris hardy and myself the music is presented by little machine with guitarist chris hardy and classical guitarist amanda cook you'll also be taken on a guided tour of the house in rome where keats died by the curator giuseppe albano when thinking about keats i always return to those lines from the ode on a grecian urn beauty is truth truth beauty that is all you know on earth and all you need to know so let's begin with the beauties of autumn read for us by rosie cavaliero season of mists and mellow fruitfulness close bosom friend of the maturing son conspiring with him how to load and bless with fruit the vines that round the fat eaves run to bend with apples the most cottage trees and fill all fruit with ripeness to the core to swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells with a sweet kernel to set budding more and still more later flowers for the bees until they think warm days will never cease for summer has overbrimmed their clammy cells who hath not seen the oft amid thy store sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find these sitting careless on a granary floor thy hair soft lifted by the winnowing wind or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep drowsed with the fume of poppies while thy hook spares the next swathe and all its twinned flowers and sometimes like a gleaner thou just keep steady thy laid in head across a brook or by a cider press with patient look our watches to the last oozings hours by hours where are the songs of spring aye where are they think not of them thou hast thy music too while barred clouds bloom the soft dying day and touch the stubble plains with rosie hugh then in a whaleful choir the small gnats mourn among the river sallows born aloft or sinking as the light wind lives or dies and full grown lambs loud bleat from hilly born hedge crickets sing and now with treble soft the red breast whistles from a garden croft and gathering swallows twitter in the skies [Music] hello my name is vincent gray i'm the sculptor responsible for the john keats sculpture that i'm both sitting here with now but also the bronze version that you may be familiar with in eastgate chichester how did the sculpture come about you ask well as i often do in order to inspire new work i carry out some research and that generates ideas in my head i carried out some research some years ago only to learn that the poet john keats had lived in chichester and at that time started work on the very famous poem eve of syntagnus and i questioned myself why isn't he represented in some way this is extraordinary you know a big man like john keats it's made such an impact on people's lives especially in the poetry world but not represented in chichester so i thought i would set about first of all by making a maquette which is a small model and present that maquette to chichester council which i did set up a meeting and they gave it a unanimous thumbs up and said if you want to realize this sculpture life size the first thing you need to do is apply for planning permission which i did and i was granted planning permission i'd already worked out the site where it was going to go more or less directly under the window of the house keats lived in on ice gate i then realized in order to get the project off the ground it fell entirely on my shoulders to raise the funds sufficient to have it cast in bronze which i set about doing i set up a campaign page and gradually money started coming in the council realized it was being taken very seriously by the public and both the city council and district council matched the public donation so the sculpture was then shipped to the foundry cast in bronze and it was installed in 2017 and unveiled by dane patricia routledge on a beautiful sunny august afternoon if you're in eastgate square in chichester and you look over keats's left-hand shoulder you will see the house that he lived in 200 years ago when he started work on the poem now as part of my efforts to raise funds i set up a poetry evening the eve of syntagnus poetry evening and the eve of syntagnus is on the 20th of january i managed to get several poets and actors together in order to do readings in some pancras church which is immediately adjacent to the site um which was always very well attended and this poetry evening has been rumbling on now for several years and i've handed it over to barry smith who heads up the southbound poetry festival so not only do we have the sculpture in chichester but we also have this poetry event which is the highlight on the social calendar for chichester so all around it's informing people of the poet and his time in chichester letter to john taylor friday 27 february 1818 in poetry i have a few axioms and you will see how far i am from their center first i think poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance second its touches of beauty should never be halfway thereby making the reader breathless instead of content the rise the progress the setting of imagery should like the sun come natural to him shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the luxury of twilight but it is easier to think what poetry should be than to write it and this leads me to another axiom that if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all however it may be with me i cannot help looking into new countries with oh for a muse of fire to ascend keats chichester in rome it was january the 20th 1819 saint agnes eve and keats was in chichester having spent christmas day with fanny brown's family in london in the new year he joined charles brown staying at 11 eastgate square with doug's parents inspired by the legend and the atmosphere of the medieval city still in part medieval keats began the poem saint agnes eve the poem is a love story based on a superstition that you may perhaps know if on saint agnes eve you go to bed hungry without talking to anyone or looking behind you you may dream of the person you will marry in the poem quizzes madeleine dreams a porphyro and waits to find that dream true then the lovers steal away from the feudal background that would separate them after spending three days with mr dilke senior in chichester keats and brown walked 13 miles to bedhampton to stay with dilks's sister-in-law mrs snook at the old mill house bedhampton as keats wrote in his letter to george on the 14th of february 1819 i was nearly a fortnight at mr snook's and a few days at old mr dilks nothing worth speaking of happened in either place i took down some of the thin paper and wrote on it a little poem called saint agnes eve i went out twice at chichester to old dowager card parties i see very little now and very few persons being tired of men and things brown and dilk are very considerate and kind towards me miss braun and i have every now and then a chat and a tiff during the spring and summer of 1819 with the braun family now living next door in their half of wentworth's place keats wrote many of the poems for which he is best known today he continued to be plagued by many troubles in early 1820 george keats arrived from america to try to hurry uh abby keats's guardian along and to collect his inheritance george took over 700 pounds keats was left with only 60 not enough to pay even his current debts were still six days after george's departure which took place on 28th of january 1820 signs of keats's fatal illness appeared he coughed blood by the time his fallen his final volume of verse lamia isabella in the eve of saint agnes and other poems was published in july 1820 all of keats's friends were worried about the state of his health on the 13th of july john reynolds records he is advised nay ordered to go to italy but in such a state it is a hopeless doom advised by his doctor to spend the winter in the warmer climate keats wrote to his publishers my chest is in so nervous to state that anything extra such as speaking to an accustomed person or writing a note half suffocates me this journey to italy wakes me at daylight every morning and haunts me horribly i shall endeavor to go though it be with the sensation of marching up against a battery despite keats's misgivings and with charles brown still away in scotland apacis was booked on the mariah crowd that's saying to naples given brown's unavailability keats was accompanied by the painter joseph seven in rome on february 23rd 1821 keats died he was 25 two years after in early spring 1823 the gravestone with its epitaph was added seven wanted to erect a headstone depicting a greek liar with a broken with broken strings with the epitaph that keeps requested only but the inscription therefore is mostly browns this grave contains all that was mortal of a young english poet who on his deathbed in the bitterness of his heart the malicious power of his enemies desired these words to be engraved and on his tombstone fanny brown remained in mourning for six years when i have fears that i may cease to be [Music] when i have fears that i may cease to be before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain before high piled books in charactery hold like which garners the full ripened grain when i behold upon the night starred face huge cloudy symbols of a high romance and think that i may never live to trace their shadows with the magic hand of chance and when i feel fair creature of an hour i shall never look upon thee more never have relish in the fairy power of unreflecting love then on the shore of the wide world i stand alone and think to love and fame to nothingness do sink keen fitful gusts [Music] keen fitful gusts are whispering here and there among the bushes half leafless and dry the stars look very cold about the sky and i have many miles on foot to fare yet feli little of the cool bleak air or of the dead leaves rustling drearily or of those silver lamps that burn on high or of the distance from home's pleasant lair for i am brim full of the friendliness that in a little cottage i have found of fair had milton's eloquent distress and all his love for gentle lysid drowned of lovely laura in her light green dress and faithful pet truck gloriously crowned on first looking into chapman's homer much have i traveled in the realms of gold and many goodly states and kingdoms seen round many western islands have i been which baths in fealty to apollo hold oft of one wide expanse had i been told that deep proud homer ruled as his domain yet did i never breathe its pure serene till i heard chapman speak out loud and bold then i felt like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken or like stout quarters when with eagle eyes he stared at the pacific and all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise silent upon a peak in darien on the grasshopper and cricket the poetry of earth is never dead when all the birds are faint with the hot sun and hide in cooling trees a voice will run from hedge to hedge about the new moan mead that is the grasshoppers he takes the lead in summer luxury he has never done with his delights for when tired out with fun he rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed the poetry of earth is ceasing never on a lone winter evening when the frost has wrought a silence from the stove their shrills the cricket song in warmth increasing ever and seems to won in drowsiness half lost the grasshoppers among some grassy hills to sleep oh soft embalmer of the still midnight shutting with careful fingers and benign our gloom-pleased eyes embowered from the light in shaded in forgetfulness divine o soothest sleep if so it please thee close in the midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes or wait the amen air thy poppy throws around my bed its lulling charities [Music] then save me or the passive day will shine upon my pillow breeding many woes save me from curious conscience that still lords its strength for darkness burrowing like a mole turn the key deftly in the oiled wards and seal the hushed casket of my soul it keeps eternal whisperings around desolate shores and with its mighty swell gluts twice ten thousand caverns till the spell of hecate leaves them their own shadowy sound often it is in such gentle temper form that scarcely will the very smallest shell be moved for days from where it sometimes fell when late the winds of heaven were unbound oh ye who have your eyeballs vexed and tired feast them upon the wideness of the sea whose ears are dimmed with uproar or fed too much with cloying melody city near some old caverns mouth and broomed until you start as if the ceilings acquired la belle dam son mercy oh what canelo the united arms alone and paley loitering this edge is withered from the lake and no birds sing or what can l the night at arms so haggard and so woe begone [Music] the squirrel's granary is full the harvest stun i see a lily on thy brow with anguish moist and fever jew and on my cheeks a fading rose fast withereth too i met a lady on the medes full beautiful a fairy's child her hair was long her foot was light and her eyes were wild i made a garland for her head and bracelets too and fragrant zone she looked at me as she did love and made sweetmen i set her on my pacing steed and nothing else saw all day long for side long she would bend and sing a fairy's song she found me roots of relish sweet and honey wild and manage you and sure in language strange she said i love thee true she took me to her elf and grot and there she wept inside full sore and there i shut her wild wild eyes with kisses for [Music] and there she lulled me asleep and there i dreamed our world were tied the latest stream i ever dreamed on the cold hillside i saw pale kings and princes two pel warriors death pale were they all they cried la belle dam song mercy had thee enthrall i saw their starved lips in the gloam with horrid warning gaped wide and i awoke and found me here on the cold hill side and this is why i sergeant here alone and paley loitering though the sedge is withered from the lake the no birds [Music] i sing steadfast as thou art not in lone splendor hung aloft the night and was with eternal lifts apart like nature's patient sleepless ceremony [Music] the moving waters at their priest-like task of pure ablution round earth's human shores on the new soft fallen mask of snow upon the mountains and the moors [Music] no yet still steadfast still unchangeable pillowed upon my fellow's [Music] awake forever [Music] still still to hear her tender taken breath and so live ever or else wound to death or else today [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] the kitchenly host has now served as a museum for more than a century and continues to attract visitors from all over the world many who come here are already well acquainted with the work of keats and his fellow romantics others are simply spurred by the curiosity about this handsome house in the heart of this historic city the collection which is devoted to the second generation english romantic poets shirley keats and byron attests to the importance of rome in the minds and imaginations of many writers and artists not just in the romantic age but over the centuries shelley keats and byron came to rome just as many had done before them following a century in which the grand tour had become a must for the completion of a gentleman's cultural education and refinement [Music] because of its thrilling classical past rome was the holy grail of the grand tour and back in the 18th century everybody who was anybody would come here to learn and then return home to boast of their experiences but for the romantics well things were slightly different they came here for escape for personal reasons as much as they did to come and learn for me this painting by joseph severn which displays the young poet shelley composing his lyrical drama prometheus unbound in the baths of karakala sums up the essence of the romantic version of the grand tour the glories of the classical past are still there but they are eulogized in the form of ruins rather than celebrated and severn also suggests a link between shelley's poetic imagination and the romantic past but the city's great beauty wasn't its only attraction for northern european writers and artists like many other sufferers from tuberculosis john keats came here in the vain hope that the milder climates would alleviate his poor health it was a vain hope in this letter here which was written by joseph 7 7 tells us he is gone he died with the most perfect ease he seemed to go to sleep on the 23rd about four the approaches of death came on seven i lift me up i am dying i shall die easy don't be frightened be firm and thank god it has come i lifted him up in my arms the flame seemed boiling in his throat and increased until 11 when he gradually sunk into death so quiet that i still thought he slept some very special things however escaped unharmed and remain here to this day the fireplace which is an original feature of the house and of course the famous ceiling with its elaborate flower [Music] motifs [Music] but the keith shelley house is also a place of great life and energy and hosts many special events temporary exhibitions and readings when i first arrived here to work as curator my own first impressions of the place were dominated by the same sense of wonder and excitement i see on visitors faces when they cross the threshold into the museum but we must never rely on our laurels as a british museum abroad we receive no public funding from the uk and survive solely on the price of our tickets and on the generosity of our donors i'm glad to say we currently receive some 23 000 visitors a year but we are always looking to expand this number these three great men behind me worked tirelessly and selflessly one century ago to ensure the prosperity and longevity of this special museum and it is now up to all of us who care about why this house matters to ensure that it survives and thrives for at least another hundred years [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] keats's last letter charles brown was keita's closest friend they met in the summer of 1817 and went on a walking holiday of scotland together keats moved into brown's home at wentworth place after tom keats's death keats's last surviving letter was written to charles brown rome 30th of november 1820 my dear brown it is the most difficult thing in the world to me to write a letter my stomach continues so bad that i feel it worse on opening any book yet i'm much better than i was in quarantine then i am afraid to encounter the probing and conning of anything interesting to me in england i have an habitual feeling of my real life having passed and that i am leading a posthumous existence god knows how it would have been but it appears to me however i will not speak of that subject i must have been in bed hampton nearly at the time you were writing to me from chichester how fortunate and to pass on the river too there was my star predominant i cannot answer anything in your letter which followed me from naples to rome because i'm afraid to look it over again i'm so weak in mind that i cannot bear the sight of any handwriting of a friend i love so much as i do you yes i ride the little horse and at my worst even in quarantine summoned up more puns in a sort of desperation in one week than in any year of my life there is one thought enough to kill me i've been well healthy alert and see walking with her and now the knowledge of contrast feeling for light and shade all that information primitive sense necessary for a perm are great enemies to the recovery of the stomach there he rogue i put you to the torture but you must bring your philosophy to bear as i do mine well how should i be able to live dr clark is very attentive to me he says there is very little matter with my lungs but my stomach he says is very bad i'm well disappointed to hearing good news from george for it runs in my head we shall die young i have not written to haslam which you must think very neglectful being anxious to send him a good account of my health i have delayed it from week to week if i recover i will do all of my power to correct the mistakes made during sickness and if i should not all my thoughts will be forgiven i shall write to dilk tomorrow or next day i'll write to woodhouse in the middle of next week seven is very well though he leads so dull a life with me remember me to all friends and tell reynolds i should not have left london without taking leave of him but from being so low in body and mind write to george as soon as you receive this and tell him how i am as far as you can guess and also a note to my sister who walks about my imagination like a ghost she's so like tom i can scarcely bid you goodbye even in a letter i always made an awkward bow letter from joseph 7 to haslam rome 15th of january 1821 sunday night half past 11. my dear haslam poor keats has just fallen asleep i have watched him and read to him to his very last wink he has been saying to me seven i can see under your quiet look immense twisting and contending you don't know what you are reading you are enduring for me more than i'd have for you all that my last hour has come what is it puzzles you now what is it happens i tell him that nothing happens nothing worries me beyond his seeing that it has been the dull day getting from myself to his recovery and then my painting and then england and then but they are all lies my heart almost leaps to deny them for i have the various load of care that ever came upon these shoulders of mine or keats is sinking daily he is dying of a consumption of a confirmed consumption perhaps another three weeks may lose me him forever keeps his friend the young painter joseph seven had sailed with him to italy as he followed medical advice to seek respite from the illness which plagued him he nursed keats through the final weeks of his life seven made a sketch as he watched over the dying poet at 26 piazza de espana rome at the bottom of the sketch an inscription 28th of january 3 o'clock morning drawn to keep me awake a deadly sweat was on him all this night keats passed away on friday the 23rd of february 1821 around 11 pm this is the last known portrait of the poet letter from joseph 7 to charles brown rome 27th of february 1821. my dear brown he is gone he died with the most perfect ease he seemed to go to sleep on the 23rd about four the approaches of death came on seven lift me up i am dying i shall die easy don't be frightened be firm and thank god it has come i lifted him in my arms the phlegm seemed boiling in his throat and increased until eleven when he gradually sunk into death so quiet that i still thought he slept i cannot say now i am broken down from four nights watching and no sleep since and my poor keats gone three days since the body was opened the lungs were completely gone the doctors could not conceive by what means he had lived these two months i followed his poor body to the grave on monday with many english they take such care of me here that i must else have gone into a fever i am better now but still quite disabled the police have been the furniture the walls the floor everything must be destroyed by the order of the law but this is well looked to by dr c the letters i put into the coffin with my own hand i must leave off js this goes by the first post some of my kind friends would have written else i will try to write to you everything next post or the doctor will they had a mask and hand and foot done i cannot get on a letter from fanny braun to fanny keats dated the 26th of february 1821 read by emily rose smith for myself i'm a patient resigned very resigned i know my keats is is happy happier a thousand times than he could have been here for fanny you do not you never can know how much he has suffered so much that i do believe were it in my power i would not bring him back all that grieves me now is that i was not with him yet it was a great deal through his kindness for me that he saw what would happen he at least was never deceived about his complaint that the doctors were ignorant and unfeeling enough to sent him to that wretched country to die [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and so we've reached the end of our journey celebrating the bicentenary of one of our best love poets john keats on his tombstone and the protestant cemetery in rome is inscribed the epitaph here lies one whose name was writ in water one who lived a brief but intense life always striving to achieve that muse of fire [Music] do [Music] [Music] you

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Length: 47min 39sec (2859 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 18 2021