Keats, John
Keats, John ( 1795 – 1821 ),the son of the manager of a livery stables in Moorfields, who died when he was 8; his mother remarried, but died of tuberculosis when he was 14. The oldest of the family, he remained deeply attached to his brothers George and Tom and to his sister Fanny . He was well educated at Clarke's school, Enfield, where he began a translation of the Aeneid, and in 1810 was apprenticed to an apothecary-surgeon. His first efforts at writing poetry appear to date from 1814 , and include an ‘Imitation of Spenser’; his school friend Cowden-Clarke recorded the profound effect of early reading of Spenser . In 1815 Keats cancelled his fifth year of apprenticeship and became a student at Guy's Hospital; to the same year belong ‘Ode to Apollo’ and ‘Hymn to Apollo’. In 1816 he was licensed to practise as an apothecary, but in spite of precarious finances abandoned the profession...
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