On Keatss Practice and Poetics of Responsibility

This accessible, informed, and engaging book offers fresh, new avenues into Keatss poems and letters, including a valuable introduction to the responsible poet. Focusing on Keatss sense of responsibility to truth, poetry, and the reader, G. Douglas Atkins, a noted T.S. Eliot critic, writes as an ama-teur. He reads the letters as literary texts, essayistic and dramatic; the Odes in comparison with Eliots treatment of similar subjects; The Eve of St. Agnes by adding to his respected earlier article on the poem an addendum outlining a bold new reading; Lamia by focusing on its complex and perplexing treatment of philosophy and imagination and revealing how Keats literally represents philosophy as functioning within poetry. Comparing Keats with Eliot, poet-philosopher, this book generates valuable insight into Keatss successful and often sophisticated poetic treatment of ideas, accentuating the image of him as the responsible poet.