with half knowledge. This pursued through Volumes would perhaps take us
no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.
Shelley's poem2 is out & there are words about its being objected too, as much as Queen Mab was. Poor Shelley I think he has his Quota of good qualities, in sooth la!! Write soon to your most sincere friend & affectionate Brother
John
To John Hamilton Reynolds'
[WORDSWORTH'S POETRY]
[February 3, 1818] My dear Reynolds, * * * It may be said that we ought to read our Contemporaries, that Words-
worth &c should have their due from us. but for the sake of a few fine imag
inative or domestic passages, are we to be bullied into a certain Philosophy
engendered in the whims of an Egotist?Every man has his speculations, but
every man does not brood and peacock over them till he makes a false coinage
and deceives himself?Many a man can travel to the very bourne2 of Heaven,
and yet want confidence to put down his halfseeing. Sancho3 will invent a
Journey heavenward as well as any body. We hate poetry that has a palpable
design upon us?and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches
pocket.4 Poetry should be great & unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's
soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject.?How
beautiful are the retired flowers! how would they lose their beauty were they to
throng into the highway crying out, 'admire me I am a violet! dote upon me I
am a primrose! Modern poets differ from the Elizabethans in this. Each of the
moderns like an Elector of Hanover governs his petty state, & knows how many
straws are swept daily from the Causeways in all his dominions & has a contin
ual itching that all the Housewives should have their coppers well scoured: the
antients were Emperors of large Emperors of vast Provinces, they had only
heard of the remote ones and scarcely cared to visit them.?I will cut all this?
I will have no more of Wordsworth or Hunt5 in particular?Why should we be
of the tribe of Manasseh, when we can wander with Esau?6 why should we kick
olds, February 3, 1818, of 'poetry that has a pal-clerk and also an able poet and man of letters. pable design upon us' (p. 943). 2. Boundary.
1. The Latin penetralia signified the innermost 3. Sancho Panza, the earthy squire in Cervantes's and most secret parts of a temple. Don Quixote. 2. Laon and Cythna (1817), whose treatment of 4. I.e., sulks and refuses to interact with. incest created scandal and which had to be with-5. Leigh Hunt, a poet who earlier had strongly drawn by the author. Shelley revised and repub-influenced Keats's style. lished it as The Revolt of Islam (1818). In Queen 6. I.e., why should we carry on a conventional way Mab (1813) Shelley had presented a radical pro-of life (as did the tribe of Manasseh in Old Testa- gram for the achievement of a millennial earthly ment history) when we can become adventurers state through the elimination of 'kings, priests, and (like Esau, who sold his birthright in Genesis statesmen.' 25.29?34 and became an outlaw). 1. A close friend who was at this time an insurance
.
94 4 / JOHN KEATS
against the Pricks, when we can walk on Roses? Why should we be owls, when
we can be Eagles? Why be teased with 'nice Eyed wagtails,' when we have in
sight 'the Cherub Contemplation'?7?Why with Wordsworths 'Matthew with
a bough of wilding in his hand' when we can have Jacques 'under an oak
&c'8?The secret of the Bough of Wilding will run through your head faster
than I can write it?Old Matthew spoke to him some years ago on some noth
ing, & because he happens in an Evening Walk to imagine the figure of the old
man?he must stamp it down in black & white, and it is henceforth sacred?I
don't mean to deny Wordsworth's grandeur & Hunt's merit, but I mean to say
we need not be teazed with grandeur & merit?when we can have them uncon
taminated & unobtrusive. Let us have the old Poets, & robin Hood9 Your letter
and its sonnets gave me more pleasure than will the 4th Book of Childe Har
