Showing posts with label John Keats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Keats. Show all posts

8 July 2016

Death of the poet Shelley

Dramatic storm took the life of young literary talent


Portrait of Shelley by Amelia Curran, painted in about 1819
Portrait of Shelley by Amelia Curran,
painted in about 1819
English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley died on this day in 1822 while travelling from Livorno in Tuscany to Lerici in Liguria in his sailing boat, the Don Juan.

Just a month before his 30th birthday, the brilliant poet of the Romantic era drowned during a sudden, dramatic storm in the Gulf of La Spezia that caused his boat to sink.

His body was later washed ashore and, in keeping with the quarantine regulations at the time, was cremated on the beach bear Viareggio on the Tuscan coast.

Shelley had been living with his wife, the writer Mary Shelley, at a rented villa in Lerici and was returning to his home from Livorno, where he had been arranging the start up of a new literary magazine to be called The Liberal.

He had set sail with two other people on board the Don Juan at about noon on Monday 8 July.  His companions were a retired naval officer, Edward Ellerker Williams, and a boatboy, Charles Vivien. Both also perished.

A friend had watched Shelley’s departure until he was about ten miles out of the harbour and then there had been a storm and he had lost sight of the boat.

Three days later one of Shelley’s friends was informed that a water keg and some bottles from the boat had been washed up on to a beach near Viareggio.

Then the terrible news was received that two bodies had been found in the same area.

Shelley's cremation on the beach at Viareggio as depicted by the French artist Louis Édouard Fournier
Shelley's cremation on the beach near Viareggio as depicted
by the French artist Louis Édouard Fournier
Shelley’s body was able to be identified by the volume of poetry by John Keats that had been found in his pocket.

The poet was cremated on the beach under the supervision of his friend, the poet Lord Byron, and others from his circle out in Italy. Byron is said to have gone for a swim while Shelley’s body burned. He is quoted as saying of Shelley: “He was the best and least selfish man I ever knew.”

Shelley’s ashes were later interred in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.


Travel tip:

The Protestant Cemetery, where Shelley’s remains were buried, is in the rione (district) of Testaccio in Rome. The poet Keats was also buried there after dying of tuberculosis in Rome at the age of 25. Shelley’s three year-old son, William, was buried there after his death in Italy.

The Grand Hotel Royal in Viareggio is an example of the Liberty style architecture characteristic of the town
The Grand Hotel Royal in Viareggio is an example of
the Liberty style architecture characteristic of the town
Travel tip:

Viareggio is a popular seaside resort in Tuscany with excellent sandy beaches and some beautiful examples of Liberty-style architecture, including the Grand Hotel Royal.  There is a monument to Shelley in the Piazza Paolina.

(Photo of the Grand Hotel Royal by Sailko CC BY-SA 3.0)



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23 February 2016

John Keats – poet

Writer spent his final days in the Eternal City


This portrait of Keats by William Hilton is housed in the National Portrait Gallery in London
The portrait of Keats by William Hilton, which is
housed in the National Portrait Gallery in London
English Romantic poet John Keats died on this day in Rome in 1821.

He had been a published writer for five years and had written some of his greatest work before leaving England.

Ode to a Nightingale, one of his most famous poems, was written in the spring of 1819 while he was sitting under a plum tree in an English garden.

Keats was just starting to be appreciated by the literary critics when tuberculosis took hold of him and he was advised by doctors to move to a warmer climate.

He arrived in Rome with his friend, Joseph Severn, in November 1820 after a long, gruelling journey.

Another friend had found them rooms in a house in Piazza di Spagna in the centre of Rome and they went past the Colosseum as they made their way there.

Keats slept in a room overlooking the Piazza and could hear the sound of the fountain outside, which may have inspired the words he later asked to be put on his tombstone.

To begin with he was well enough to go for walks along the Via del Corso and he enjoyed sitting on the Spanish Steps, but he was advised by his doctor against visiting the city’s main attractions.


The house in Rome where Keats lived,
at the foot of the Spanish Steps. 

Keats insisted that Severn visited the Vatican Galleries and the Colosseum and that he entertained him with descriptions of them when he returned.

At the end of November he wrote in a letter to a friend: “I have an habitual feeling of my real life being past, and that I am leading a posthumous existence.”

By December his condition had worsened and the doctor treated him by taking blood from him and keeping him on a virtual starvation diet.

In early January his health improved and Keats was able to go outside again and enjoy the warmth of the sunlight.

But by February his health had deteriorated further and he was confined to bed. On Friday, February 23 he asked his friend to lift him up because he knew he was dying. For hours, the devoted Severn held him in his arms until the poet passed away. He was just 25 years of age.

On Monday, February 26 Keats was taken to the Protestant Cemetery in Rome where he was buried. The Reverend Mr Wolff conducted the service and, according to the poet’s wishes, daisies were planted over his grave.

Two years later, Severn supervised the placing of a tombstone on the grave bearing the words: ‘This grave contains all that was mortal of a young English poet who on his deathbed, in the bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of his enemies, desired these words to be engraved on his tombstone: HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER.’

Travel tip:

Piazza di Spagna is at the bottom of the Spanish Steps in Rome. The Fontana della Barcaccia that Keats could hear in his room was sculpted by Pietro Bernini and his son Gian Lorenzo Bernini. At the bottom of the Spanish Steps to the right is the house where Keats lived, which is now a museum, the Keats-Shelley Memorial House, commemorating the Romantic poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Hotels in Rome by Booking.com


The Colosseum bathed in evening sunlight

Travel tip:

The Colosseum, which Keats passed on the way to his lodgings, is one of the most famous sights in Rome. Forbidden by his doctor to visit the main attractions in the city, Keats sent his friend Severn to have a look round and asked him to tell him all about it when he returned. He described it as: “superb in its stupendous size and rugged grandeur of outline.” The first century arena could seat more than 50,000 bloodthirsty spectators who revelled in the spectacle of gladiators fighting to the death. These days the ruins are floodlit at night creating another magnificent spectacle in Rome.



More reading:

Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley drowns at sea

Lord Byron in Venice

Pietro Bembo - the poet who was Lucrezia Borgia's lover

Also on this day:



Books:

John Keats: A New Life, by Nicholas Roe

Selected Poems (Macmillan Collector's Library)

(Picture credits: Keats's House by Gabriele di Donfrancesco; Spanish Steps by Benreis at wikivoyage; Colosseum by Andreas Tille; all via Wikimedia Commons)