Publisher's Synopsis
John Keats is one of the first and most assiduous cultivators of metapoetry in his century. In this sense, and in others, he already heralds Rimbaud and Rilke. Like the first one, he is a visionary poet. Like the second, he turns what he touches into an art object. Joyful Midas of powerful imagination, little Keats perhaps tiptoed through life, but he entered poetry and the blank kingdom of word and spirit with a firm step. Just as the title of one of his less-known poems reads, Keats succeeded in making himself The Verbal Castle Builder, the Borgesian Maker of the poem. Because of his warm voice, he could be defined as an Italian poet born in England. The truth is that in the end he was undoubtedly an English poet who died in Italy, in Rome, in 1821, while climbing, according to legend, the steps of the Plaza de España. This version of Keats' complete poetry follows the canonical edition of The Complete Poems of John Keats, as edited by Paul Wright (Wordsworth Poetry Library, London, 2001). Like all great poets, Keats has a humorous streak that, in his case, precedes the irony of later authors (a Laforgue or an Eliot). And above all, there is the magician Keats of language and imagination, the two essential elements in every good poet.
