3 November 1816: Benjamin Robert Haydon
41 Great Marlborough Street, London
Keats visits the studio on 3 November 1816—he comes for breakfast. Keats has met Haydon earlier at Leigh Hunt’s cottage in Hampstead. Haydon decides that Keats will be included as a face in his massive, crowded painting Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem (which no doubt thrilled the unknown, striving young poet). Haydon makes a sketch of Keats for the painting in November 1816, and he also makes the iconic life-mask of Keats mid-December.
Early in their relationship, Keats is more or less dazzled by Haydon, and not just because of his reputation and his strong
theories about art: Haydon is acquainted with numerous famous persons of the era,
including
William Wordsworth, whom Keats will meet in
late 1817 via Haydon. Keats is more than thrilled that Haydon plans to send Wordsworth
some of
Keats’s poetry (though Haydon delays sending it for about a month)—Keats writes to
Haydon that
the idea of Wordworth seeing his poetry puts him out of breath
(21 Nov). But the
relationship between Haydon and Keats is hardly one-way: Haydon quickly returns enthusiasm
to
Keats in affectionate ways that in fact exceed Keats’s regard for him.
To speculate a little: Part of Haydon’s complex and precarious personality is wrapped
up in
his pushy belief in his own genius and destined greatness. When he meets Keats, he
is
probably, first, attracted to Keats’s gracious and engaging character; second, Haydon,
like
others, would have recognized Keats’s very obvious intelligence and dedication to
pursuits
linked to higher beauty and art; and third, Haydon felt that Keats himself was destined
for
greatness, and attaching himself to the young poet might have elevated or at least
confirmed
his own ambitions, as well as offering an association with the young poet, thereby
putting
himself in mentor role. But one thing is sure: Haydon makes Keats truly believe in
his greater
poetic purpose: as Keats now writes to Haydon, I begin to fix my eye upon one horizon
(21 Nov).
Keats writes a fairly innovative sonnet this month that celebrates Haydon’s significance
in
Great Spirits now on
Earth (Wordsworth and Hunt are
praised along with Haydon). Keats sends the sonnet to Haydon in a letter of 20 November.
The
poem also contains a self-reference: it mentions other spirits . . . standing apart / Upon
the forehead of the age to come.
One characteristic is noteworthy in Keats’s sideways
reference to himself: much of Keats’s poetry intimates or points to the future, and
in his
early poetry, the future he often fashions is wrapped up in his desire to become an
enduring
poet, though his ambitions are too often bogged down in somewhat immature notions
of poetic
fame. We might blame youth and ambition; we might also point to Hunt, who is at times
fond of
nurturing notions of celebrity, including (and particularly) his own.
Importantly, Haydon will show Keats the Elgin Marbles in March 1817, which is a minor turning point in the development of Keats’s theories about art and beauty: How do the silent, mysterious sculptures engage the imagination? How do they challenge mortality and exemplify immortality? Haydon also comes to cast doubts about Hunt’s manner and influence, and at least part of his motivation has to do with competition for Keats’s allegiance.
After professional and money-related failures, in 1846 Haydon kills himself in a grizzly suicide.
