John Keats: poet, patient, physician.
John Keats, son of an ostler , was born in London in 1795. Despite an early interest in literature he was, surprisingly, apprenticed to an apothecary and continued his medical training at Guy's Hospital, obtaining the Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1816. He never practiced medicine. His early poems were not well received, and for the young poet with very slender means, life was difficult. Tragedy was added to difficulty when tuberculosis, which had already caused the death of his mother and uncle, became apparent in his brother Tom, whom Keats nursed through his illness when the brothers were living together in Hampstead . Subsequently Keats developed the disease, but despite its rapid progress, he managed in a single year - 1819 - to produce some of the finest lyrical poetry in the language. He went to Italy in the hope of obtaining a cure but died in Rome in 1821, aged 25. Medicine certainly contributed to the man, but also something to the poet, Keats; his training and his family and personal experience of tuberculosis speak for themselves. More subtly , his medical experience influenced in some degree his ideas and even his choice of words. The interrelations of poet-patient and trainee-physician are examined in this essay.
D005197:Famous Persons; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D008093:Literature, Modern / Q000266:history*; D008131:London; D008297:Male; D011037:Poetry as Topic / Q000266:history*; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000266:history