old1 & the whole of any body's life & opinions. * * *
Yr sincere friend and Coscribbler
John Keats.
To John Taylor1
[KEATS'S AXIOMS IN POETRY]
[February 27, 1818] My dear Taylor, Your alteration strikes me as being a great improvement?the page looks
much better. * * * It is a sorry thing for me that any one should have to
overcome Prejudices in reading my Verses?that affects me more than any
hypercriticism on any particular Passage. In Endymion I have most likely but
moved into the Go-cart from the leading strings.2 In Poetry I have a few Axi
oms, and you will see how far I am from their Centre. 1st 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 Remem
brance?2nd Its touches of Beauty should never be half way therby making
the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of
imagery should like the Sun come natural natural too him?shine over him
and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the Luxury of twi
light?but it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it?and
this leads me on 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 'O for a Muse of fire to
ascend!'3?If Endymion serves me as a Pioneer perhaps I ought to be content.
I have great reason to be content, for thank God I can read and perhaps
7. Milton, 'II Penseroso,' line 54. 'Nice Eyed Endymion was being put through the press. wagtails': from Hunt's Nymphs. 2. Go-carts were the wheeled walkers in which 8. Shakespeare's As You Like It 2.1.31. The 19th- century toddlers learned to walk. Leading- Wordsworth phrase is from his poem 'The Two strings were the harnesses with which they were April Mornings.' A 'wilding' is a wild apple tree. guided and supported while they learned. Keats's 9. A reference to two sonnets on Robin Hood, point appears to be that as a poet he has not written by Reynolds, which he had sent to Keats. advanced and may even have regressed in Endym1. Canto 4 of Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ion. was being eagerly awaited by English readers. 3. Altered from Shakespeare's Henry V, Prologue, 1. Partner in the publishing firm of Taylor and line 1. Hessey, to whom Keats wrote this letter while
.
LETTERS / 95 1
understand Shakspeare to his depths, and I have I am sure many friends, who,
if I fail, will attribute any change in my Life and Temper to Humbleness rather
than to Pride?to a cowering under the Wings of great Poets rather than to a
Bitterness that I am not appreciated. I am anxious to get Endymion printed
that I may forget it and proceed. * * *
Your sincere and obligd friend
John Keats?
P.S. You shall have a sho[r]t Preface in good time? To John Hamilton Reynolds
[MILTON, WORDSWORTH, AND THE CHAMBERS OF HUMAN LIFE]
[May 3, 1818] My dear Reynolds.
4
* 4 Were I to study physic or rather Medicine again,?I feel it would not make the least difference in my Poetry; when the Mind is in its infancy a Bias
is in reality a Bias, but when we have acquired more strength, a Rias becomes
no Bias. Every department of knowledge we see excellent and calculated
towards a great whole. I am so convinced of this, that I am glad at not having
given away my medical Books, which I shall again look over to keep alive the
little I know thitherwards; and moreover intend through you and Rice to
become a sort of Pip-civilian.1 An extensive knowledge is needful to thinking
people?it takes away the heat and fever; and helps, by widening speculation,
