His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the age of They were indifferently received in his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly after his death.
Keats had a style "heavily loaded with sensualities", notably in the series of odes. Typically of the Romantics , he accentuated extreme emotion through natural imagery. Today his poems and letters remain among the most popular and analysed in English literature β in particular "Ode to a Nightingale", " Ode on a Grecian Urn ", " Sleep and Poetry " and the sonnet " On First Looking into Chapman's Homer ". Jorge Luis Borges named his first time reading Keats an experience he felt all his life.
There is little evidence of his exact birthplace. Although Keats and his family seem to have marked his birthday on 29 October, baptism records give the date as the 31st. Another son was lost in infancy. His father first worked as an ostler [ 5 ] at the stables attached to the Swan and Hoop Inn owned by his father-in-law, John Jennings, an establishment he later managed, and where the growing family lived for some years.
Keats believed he was born at the inn, a birthplace of humble origins, but there is no evidence to support this. His parents wished to send their sons to Eton or Harrow , but the family decided they could not afford the fees. The small school had a liberal outlook and a progressive curriculum more modern than the larger, more prestigious schools.
The headmaster's son, Charles Cowden Clarke, also became an important mentor and friend, introducing Keats to Renaissance literature, including Tasso , Spenser , and Chapman's translations. The young Keats was described by his friend Edward Holmes as a volatile character, "always in extremes", given to indolence and fighting.
