Record Number: 22614

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

[Marginalia in Keats's annotated copy of "Paradise Lost", Book 4, lines 268-72] Keats underlines the lines: "Not that fair field/ Of Enna, where Proserpin gathering flowers,/ Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis/ Was gather'd, which cost Ceres all that pain/ To seek her through the world." He writes: 'There are two specimens of a very extraordinary beauty in the "Paradise Lost"; they are of a nature as far as I have read, unexampled elsewhere - they are entirely distinct from the brief pathos of Dante - and they are not to be found even in Shakespeare - these are according to the great prerogative of poetry better described in themselves than by a volume. The one is in the fol[lowing] - "which cost Ceres all that pain" - the other is that ending "Nor could the Muse defend her son" - they appear exclusively Miltonic without the shadow of another mind ancient or modern.'

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

unknown

Country:

unknown

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

John Keats

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

31 Oct 1795

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

poet

Religion:

atheist

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

unknown

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

John Milton

Title:

Paradise Lost

Genre:

Other religious, Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

22614

Source:

Print

Author:

John Keats

Editor:

John Barnard

Title:

John Keats: The Complete Poems

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1988

Vol:

n/a

Page:

524-5

Additional Comments:

The marginalia is transcribed in Appendix 4 of this edition

Citation:

John Keats, John Barnard (ed.), John Keats: The Complete Poems , (London, 1988), p. 524-5, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=22614, accessed: 21 December 2024

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Additional Comments:

None