...'--(Letter to J.H. Reynolds, Sept. 22, 1819.)
That outwardly negative reaction is packed with positive implications.
'English ought to be kept up' meant, on Keats's lips, a very great deal.
But there is other and more definite authority for the positive
direction in which he was turning. To his brother George he wrote, at
the same time:--
'I have but lately stood on my guard against Milton. Life to him
would be death to me. Miltonic verse cannot be written, but is the
verse of art. I wish to devote myself to another verse alone.'
More definite still is the letter of November 17, 1819, to his friend
and publisher, John Taylor:--
'I have come to a determination not to publish anything I have now
ready written; but for all that to publish a poem before long and
that I hope to make a fine one. As the marvellous is the most
enticing and the surest guarantee of harmonious numbers I have been
endeavouring to persuade myself to untether fancy and to let her
manage for herself.
Pages:
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106