John Keats

Published in 1963, Bate's biography won the Pulitzer Prize and is often hailed as the definitive account of the English Romantic poet's life. It is praised for its deep psychological analysis of Keats's artistic development rather than just focusing on his tragic romance with Fanny Brawne.

Bate provides an extensive, celebrated analysis of Keats's theory of 'Negative Capability,' which is the ability of an artist to exist comfortably in uncertainty and doubt. He argues this concept was crucial to Keats's maturation into one of the greatest poets in the English language.

Yes, Bate dedicates considerable space to Keats's early years training to become an apothecary and surgeon at Guy's Hospital in London. He shows how this rigorous scientific education influenced the poet's exacting, vivid descriptions of the physical world.

The book chronicles the tragic trajectory of the disease that killed both Keats's brother and eventually Keats himself at age 25 in 1821. Bate explores how the looming presence of death profoundly heightened the urgency and beauty of Keats's final, greatest poems.