Ode on a Grecian Urn

Born on October 31st, 1895 John Keats was the eldest of four siblings to his two parents, Thomas and Frances Jennings Keats, in the town of Moorgate, England. His family was finically stable early in his life due to his father’s job as a manager and then later owner of his father-in-laws stable. With this income they had the ability to purchase a home and to also send John and his siblings to a small liberal academy nearby their home (Contemporary Authors Online). While at school, he met and befriended a boy named Charles Clarke who was the son of the head master.

Being that John Keats is now reserved as one of the great poets of all time in the English language, most would find it rather absurd to find out that young Keats was indeed not involved in any type of English profession course that would advance his skills to be helpful in his future profession. Rather than that ,“Clarke remembered an outgoing youth, who made friends easily and fought passionately in their defense.” He was not merely the “favorite of all, like a pet prize-fighter, for his terrier courage; but his high-mindedness, his utter unconsciousness of a mean motive, his placability, his generosity, wrought so general a feeling in his behalf, that I never heard a word of disapproval from any one, superior or equal, who had known him.” “He was not a shy, bookish child”; one of his schoolmates, Edward Holmes, later said that "Keats was not in childhood attached to books. His penchant was for fighting. He would fight any one.” (Keats and Friendship).

Tradgedy struck his family in 1804 that not only shocked him, but changed his entire life. When upon a ride home, his father fell from his horse and was injured. Thomas Keats died the next day. This sent the family into...

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