Product Description

The letters of Keats between 1816 and 1821 are passionate, revealing and sensitive. Furthermore, it was within the context of these letters that many of the poems first appeared, Perry Keenlyside has selected some of the most revealing of the letters to show the state of mind and attitudes of the poet while he was writing that made him one of the most loved poets in the English language.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1105428 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12
• Released on: 2007-06-06
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Abridged, Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .40" h x 5.92" w x 4.88" l, .27 pounds
• Binding: Audio CD

From Library Journal
Despite various recorded readings of Keats's poems, this is the first time an audiobook has been structured around his letters. Surrounded by brief but apt commentary, these writings reveal his closeness with his siblings. After nursing a brother who died of consumption, Keats became haunted by the prospect of his own early death, a concern that infiltrates many of the letters. The earlier ones also reveal his discomfort around women and his determination never to marry. This might seem strange for one of the greatest Romantic poets, but another look at the poems, which are read by Samuel West and Matthew Marsh, proves his most loving entreaties are abstractions. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" as he says in "Ode on a Grecian Urn," which was written during the early period of his infatuation with Fanny Brawne, the one woman he wishes to love in the flesh. Prohibited from doing so, he wrote works that alternately idolize and criticize. This is a rare glimpse of the poet presented in a nonscholarly format. Recommended wherever there is interest in Keats or Romantic poetry.
-Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York
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