CHAPTER X. THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM (1800-1850)As Wordsworth’s work is too often marred by the moral-
izer, and Byron’s by the demagogue, and Shelley’s by the re-
former, so Keats’s work suffers by the opposite extreme of
aloofness from every human interest; so much so, that he
is often accused of being indifferent to humanity. His work
is also criticised as being too effeminate for ordinary read-
ers. Three things should be remembered in this connection.
First, that Keats sought to express beauty for its own sake;
that beauty is as essential to normal humanity as is govern-
ment or law; and that the higher man climbs in civilization
the more imperative becomes his need of beauty as a reward
for his labors. Second, that Keats’s letters are as much an in-
dication of the man as is his poetry; and in his letters, with
their human sympathy, their eager interest in social prob-
lems, their humor, and their keen insight into life, there is no
trace of effeminacy, but rather every indication of a strong
and noble manhood. The third thing to remember is that
all Keats’s work was done in three or four years, with small
preparation, and that, dying at twenty-five, he left us a body
of poetry which will always be one of our most cherished
possessions. He is often compared with "the marvelous boy"
Chatterton, whom he greatly admired, and to whose mem-
ory he dedicated hisEndymion; but though both died young,
Chatterton was but a child, while Keats was in all respects a
man. It is idle to prophesy what he might have done, had he
been granted a Tennyson’s long life and scholarly training.
At twenty five his work was as mature as was Tennyson’s at
fifty, though the maturity suggests the too rapid growth of a
tropical plant which under the warm rains and the flood of
sunlight leaps into life, grows, blooms in a day, and dies.
As we have stated, Keats’s work was bitterly and unjustly
condemned by the critics of his day. He belonged to what
was derisively called the cockney school of poetry, of which
Leigh Hunt was chief, and Proctor and Beddoes were fellow-
workmen. Not even from Wordsworth and Byron, who were
ready enough to recommend far less gifted writers, did Keats