I’m very scared at this time of the year because they’re mistreating us and making us sleep all the kids together in one room….. Generally the conditions are very bad.

We wake up in the morning and they immediately make us work in the chimneys. They also don’t give us much food and we don’t take breaks from work so we get tired and can’t keep going.

I think at some point everything’s going to get better and we’re not going to live in such bad conditions. That’s why I feel joy and expectation.

Sav. Vasiliki

Children the joy of life.

Hate does not exist in their heart.

Impossible in nothing for them – that’s they think.

Light is full of their souls.

Difficulties many will me.

Lies a lot can say.

Anger will feel a lot.

But someday it will all go away.

Ocean will be their life experiences.

Ugliness in the world will have see a lot.

Refuge is their warm soul

Savvidou Vasiliki

John Keats 31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and PercyBysshe Shelley, despite his works having been in publication for only four years before his death from tuberculosis at the age of 25.

Although his poems were not generally well received by critics during his lifetime, his reputation grew after his death, and by the end of the 19th century, he had become one of the most beloved of allEnglish poets. He had a significant influence on a diverse range of poets and writers. Jorge LuisBorges stated that his first encounter with Keats” work was the most significant literary experience of his life.

The poetry of Keats is characterised by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. This is typical of romantic poets, as they aimed to accentuate extreme emotion through an emphasis on natural imagery. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analysed in English literature. Some of the most acclaimed works of Keats are «Ode to a Nightingale«, «Sleep and Poetry«, and the famous sonnet «On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer«

John Keats was born in Moorgate, London, on 31 October 1795 to Thomas Keats and his wife, Frances Jennings. There is little evidence of his exact birthplace. Although Keats and his family seem to have marked his birthday on 29 October, baptism records give the date as the 31st. He was the eldest of four surviving children; his younger siblings were George (1797–1841), Thomas (1799–1818), and Frances Mary «Fanny» (1803–1889) who eventually married Spanish author Valentín Llanos Gutiérrez. Another son was lost in infancy. His father first worked as a hostler at the stables attached to the Swan and Hoop Inn, an establishment he later managed, and where the growing family lived for some years.

In April 1804, when Keats was eight, his father died from a skull fracture, suffered when he fell from his horse while returning from a visit to Keats and his brother George at school.Thomas Keats died intestate. Frances remarried two months later, but left her new husband soon afterwards, and the four children went to live with their grandmother, Alice Jennings, in the village of Edmonton.

Famous poems

Endymion                                                                                                                                            

Published:1818                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Based on the Greek myth of Endymion in which the moon Goddess Selene falls in love with a mortal, Keats’ Endymion is divided into four books, approximately thousand lines each. Most of the contemporary critics disliked the poem but it is now among his most famous work

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer

Published:1816 Statue of Homer outside the Bavarian State Library in Munich Keats and his friend Charles Cowden Clarke spent an evening reading George Chapman’s superb 17th century translation of Homer’s classics Iliad and Odyssey. Keats wrote this sonnet as a gift for Clarke who found it the next day on the breakfast table. The poem has become a classic, often cited to demonstrate the emotional power of a great work of art and its ability to create an epiphany in its beholder.

#6 The Eve of St. Agnes Published : 1820

Saint Agnes by Domenichino                                                                                                   

Saint Agnes is the patron saint of young girls and Saint Agnes’ Eve falls on the 20th of January. Keats’ poem is based on the superstition that a girl could see her future husband in a dream if she performed certain rites on the eve of St. Agnes. The poem was influential in 19th century literature and is considered one of Keats’ finest.

#5 Ode to a Nightingale

Published:1819

W. J. Neatby’s 1899 illustration for Ode to a Nightingale

A nightingale built its nest near Keats’ home in the spring of 1819 and inspired by its song, Keats wrote this famous ode in a single day. In the poem Keats describes a nightingale that experiences a type of death but does not actually die. The bird is able to live through its song, a fate which is impossible for a human to achieve.

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Published:1820

Keats’ Urn – Tracing of an engraving of the Sosibios vase by Keats

Keats believed that classical Greek art was idealistic and captured Greek virtues. This led to him writing ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ which has five stanzas of 10 lines in which he has discoursed on the design of a Grecian urn. At the time of its publication, the poem was not received well by the critics but it is now considered one of the greatest odes in the English language.

By Demetris G.                                                                                                              

The gothic element in Romanticism – A horror story

I recently watched an animated film on ‘’Coraline’’. The plot of the film unfolds in a mysterious house. The protagonist is an 11-years-oid girl, Coraline.

In this film there were several elements of horror and one of them (perhaps the most intense) was when the ‘’other mom’’ wanted to stitch Coraline’s eyes with buttons and take her soul.

She and her parents are moving into a new house. There things for Coraline do not go so well because on the one hand she misses her friends and on the other her parents are absorbed by their work and ignore her. The only friend Coraline gets there is a weird boy.

Exploring her new home finds a secret door that should not be opened, but Coraline cannot resist her curiosity and opens it up, by finding herself is another world but the same as hers. But this ‘’other world’’ hides a lot of dangers. Looks the same as the real one.

Suddenly, however, things get ugly and the ‘’other parents’’ try to keep her from their side forever, but Coraline has to find the strength and change the things that are going on. To make it, she puts her life in great danger. It’s a world of live toys, dolls and mice, stolen souls and many other mysteries where this little girl will have to fight with all her strength to save her real parents and her own soul.

  John Keats was born 31 October 1795 in Central London. His parents were middle class but didn’t have the funds to send him to a top public school. Instead, Keats was sent to John Clarke’s school in Enfield. The school was quite progressive and gave Keats an opportunity to learn both classic literature and also Renaissance literature such as Spenser.

When he was young, Keats lost both his father (aged 8) and later his mother (aged 14). Orphaned at an early age, Keats and his siblings were looked after by their grandmother. It also placed the family in a difficult financial situation – Keats would struggle with money throughout his life.

Having finished school, Keats took an apprenticeship at Guy’s Hospital, London in October 1815. In the early nineteenth century, the job of a surgeon was very challenging; in the absence of anaesthetic and modern technology, there was only a limited amount doctors could do to ease the condition of patients. This suffering of patients and people was a theme Keats would later incorporate into his poetry. It was hoped that this medical training would give Keats a secure career and financial income. However, in 1816, despite making good progress, Keats told his guardian that he couldn’t become a surgeon and felt compelled to try and make a career as a poet. It was a decision that his guardians failed to understand because, at the time, there was little hope of making money from writing poetry.

However, Keats was introduced to some of the leading literary figures of the day, such as Leigh Hunt, Percy Shelley and poet John Hamilton Reynolds. This enabled him to publish his first collection of poems, but they were not a critical success and sold very few copies.

In 1818, he first came into contact with Frances (Fanny) Brawne. She was 18 at the time, and a close friendship arose between them. However, the relationship was overshadowed by Keats nursing of his brother Tom. Also the lack of finance meant that Keats had no realistic chance of being able to marry. The relationship was also cut short by the aggravation of Keat’s tuberculosis. In 1818, his great work Endymion was published, however, many reviews were highly critical of Keat’s ‘immaturity’, it was labelled by some, including Byron as ‘Cockney Poetry’ – suggesting the poet used uncouth language. The edition sold very few copies, leaving both Keats and the publisher with a feeling of shame. Despite this critical failure, Keats gave an indication he strove only for genius. He did retain a faith in his poetry. As he writes: “I was never afraid of failure, for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.”

By September 1820, Keats was very fragile from the effects of the disease. He was advised to move to warmer climes, and so with the help of friends, he was booked on a ship to Italy. However, after a rough sea journey, Keats’ health failed to improve; within a few months of arriving in Italy, he died from the disease that had claimed his mother and brother.

The last months were a period of great turmoil and difficulty. Often denied, even a small quantity of opium to ease the physical pain, Keats was racked with a feeling of insufficiency relating to the negative reviews his poetry had received.

Keats had died at the age of 25, after a period of just six years writing poetry. During his lifetime, he was a commercial and critical failure, selling only around 200 copies of books.

Keats was buried in a cemetery in Rome, with the simple inscription on his tombstone ” Young English poet – Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”

However, within a few years of his death, his reputation was to sharply rise – becoming one of Britain’s best-loved poets.

The poetry of Keats is characterized by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. This is typical of romantic poets, as they aimed to accentuate extreme emotion through an emphasis on natural imagery. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analyzed in English literature. Some of the most acclaimed works of Keats are «Ode to a Nightingale«, «Sleep and Poetry«, and the famous sonnet «On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer«. 

ΠΗΓΗ : Wikipedia (Ελεύθερη Απόδοση)

Σαββίδου Βασιλική

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Shelley. He was born on 31 October 1795, in Moorgate, London. His father was Thomas Keats and his mother was Frances Jennings, he also had three younger siblings: George, Thomas, and Frances Mary. Actually he also had another brother was lost in infancy.

During 1820 Keats displayed increasingly serious symptoms of tuberculosis, suffering two lung hemorrhages in the first few days of February.On first coughing up blood, on 3 February 1820, he said to Charles Armitage Brown, «I know the colour of that blood! It is arterial blood.I cannot be deceived in that colour. That drop of blood is my death warrant. I must die». He finally died on 23 February, 1821,at the age of 25 from the disease of tuberculosis.