May 1817: Bo-Peep, Isabella Jones, & Endymion as a Coming-of-Age Poem
Bo-Peep (now St. Leonards-on-Sea)
Keats’s writing trip to begin work on his long poem Endymion begins on the Isle of Wight mid-April, continues to Margate and then to Canterbury in May, and finally to the sea-side resort village of Bo-Peep (now St. Leonards-on-Sea), close to Hastings,* by the end of May. With the suggestion of his very close friend at this point, the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon, Keats (aged 21) stays at a small inn called The New England Bank.
While in the area of the small village of Bo-Peep toward the end of May, Keats meets
an
alluring, smart, stylish, and, it seems, experienced woman of, it seems, independent
means,
with whom he has some kind of romantic encounter. Her name is Isabella Jones—Mrs. Jones,
aka the Hastings
Lady
—though there is no clear evidence if she is a widow or just a woman of particular
status (that is, Mrs.
was sometimes used as an honorific term to bestow a sense of
respectability, and not necessarily a term to suggest being married or possibly widowed).
We
aren’t fully certain of her age, which, given what Keats himself and various scholarly
pundits
guess, ranges from being the same age of Keats to being a widow in her late thirties.
It
appears, too, she is in Bo-Peep with an older, well-connected man, Donatus (Donat
)
O’Callaghan (c.1744-1830), who stays frequently in Hastings. Was she staying in accommodation
provided by the O’Callaghan family? But her exact connection to the O’Callaghans remains
unclear, though the connection is clear. But whatever, Keats never quite forgets about
her,
and he will run into her in London on a couple of occasions.
Keats will have later meetings with Mrs. Jones.
On 24 October 1818 he reports to brother George and his
wife Georgiana that he has just visited her very cultured (or at least artsy)
residence in the central London district of Fitzrovia, which impresses and perhaps
tantalizes
Keats with its music, aeolian harp, art, expensive booze, busts, books, and birds—as
well as
bronze statue of Napoleon, which may suggest something of her free-thinking sympathies.
And at
this later date he briefly describes this his Bo-Peep encounter: Keats (in his own
words) says
he warmed with her before and kissed her.
But that was May 1817; now, in October 1818,
she tastefully turns down his apparent advance, and Keats settles with pressing her
hand upon
departure, which seems not to have bothered him too much; in fact, it gained her some
respect
from Keats. As Keats writes, I have no libidinous thought about her
(24 Oct 1818),
though, again, it is hard to determine Keats’s feelings or intentions, since there
seems to
have been an agreement between Keats and Isabella to keep their connection quiet between
mutual acquaintances; they do, after all, move in overlapping London circles.
[For much more about Mrs. Jones, see 24 October 1818.]
Isabella Jones is perhaps the inspiration for a
couple of indifferent poems of longing written in 1817: Unheard, unfelt, unseen and Hither, hither,
love. And she seems to make a return appearance as sweet Isabel
in an 1818
poem by Keats—Hush, hush! tread
softly—where two lovers secretly meet to do, at the very least, some much-desired
kissing. Following from that, Isabella also later seems to have suggested to Keats
that he
write a poem about the one evening once a year when young virgins dream about their
future
husbands; the resulting poem is one of Keats’s first sustained masterpieces, The Eve of St.
Agnes, composed early 1819; and here, controversially, there is more than just
kissing. Finally, as mentioned, what we also know is that Mrs. Jones is or becomes
part of a
social circle that fully intersects with Keats, and in particular Keats’s publisher,
John Taylor, and includes other writers revolving
around John Scott’s
The London Magazine. In fact, it appears that Taylor and Isabella were secretly
engaged in early 1818 before being broken off [See Mark Wiltshire,
2026]); without either knowing it, then, Keats and Taylor were, at the same time,
enthralled with Isabella.
At his point, with much encouragement from Haydon, Keats is working hard on a long, classical romance, Endymion. However, he also begins to feel a little overwhelmed by the task ahead.
Keats’s idea is simple enough: a substantial poem will be, he believes, his self-testing
trial
of invention and imagination. In a way, and at best, the poem’s plot of a young poet-like
shepherd in search of the ideal of his imagination is allegorical of Keats’s own desire
to
become a poet: a poet in search of his own ideals of immortal truth and beauty. Keats
will
later say that good poetry should feel natural and surprise by fine excess
(letters, 27
Feb 1818). But the trouble with Endymion, a poem that too often
luxuriates in random description, sensation, and vision, is that there is excess
without it necessarily being fine
—there is, in its wandering manner and in spilling
rhymes that over-determine sense, much to much artifice and not enough that natural
depth.
Keats himself will publicly declare in the poem’s eventual preface that Endymion exhibits adolescent sentiments and great inexperience, and
is hardly worthy of publication; the poem represents, in effect, a fairly deliberate
coming-of-age project. Despite a few passages that look forward to better poetry,
the poem is
much more a clear act of perseverance than of achievement. There is not much in the
way of a
big idea, and there is very little internal, complicating intensity.
Haydon encourages Keats, in isolation, to
devote himself to reading and studying. (Shakespeare is the presiding literary presence on the trip, though this is not
overly reflected in Endymion; there are some dashes of A Midsummers Night Dream, and, like Shakespeare at moments, Keats
attempts to conjure a little medieval romance.) Haydon also urges Keats not to despair
or be
tormented by anxieties, but instead move forward without hesitation or fear
: your
energy will give you strength, & hope & comfort
(Haydon to Keats, 8 May 1817).
Keats responds by declaring that he is reading and writing about eight hours a day
(letters, 10 May). Keats’s mood, though, is uneven, and for moments on the dark side:
he
writes of a Morbidity of Temperament
that, as his Enemy,
strikes him at
intervals and sometimes leaves him inspirationally hampered (letters, 11 May). A few
days
later, he writes of a Brain so overwrought
and the effects of a Mental Debauch
(letters, 16 May). So what is going on with Keats? Chronic depression? Some kind of
anxiety
disorder? It might be easy to toss some of these modern labels Keats’s way, but given
Keats’s
sensitive and hyper-articulate nature, what we have is a young man in search of direction
but
simply caught between hope and uncertainty.
At this very early stage in his poetic progress, Keats, venting to Haydon, begins to condemn Leigh Hunt’s self-declarations (delusions,
Keats calls them) of poetic
greatness (letters, 11 May). This is somewhat surprising, since Hunt, as perhaps one
center of
London’s liberal-progressive artistic and political intelligentsia, is really the
first to
discover and promote Keats, beginning in the second half of 1816. Keats begins to
think that
Hunt’s style of poetry and Hunt’s notions of his own poetic worth do not suit his
own tastes
and developing program to write enduring poetry. Yet despite Keats strongly lamenting
Hunt’s
claims to being a great poet to Haydon, Keats has just written to Hunt, praising his
journalist prowess, quoting some Shakespeare, and confessing his own anxieties and insecurities about poetry and fame,
even if for the last few days he has felt more confident.
Keats also gives Hunt a kind
of progress report on Endymion, that he is working on it every day, and that he hopes he doesn’t
miss the Goal
with his poem (10 May). Hunt will later off-handedly slight Keats’s
poem, which Keats hears about. Keats thought that perhaps Hunt was miffed that he
had not been
consulted enough in the writing of the poem.
But back to Hunt for a moment: As a writer, he was, in effect, a jack of all genres. He wrote poetry and prose in all kinds of styles and for all kinds of purposes; he is nothing short of prolific. But if we were to point to his greatest contribution (besides being an important publisher and editor), it was in the realm of the essay, within which he fairly innovatively ranges from high politics to the lower familial. The one joining factor in his writing: his voice and opinions are generally independent and free-thinking, and his tone is very much his own. Hunt also had a pretty good nose for literary and artistic talent, and was often a supporter of such talent ahead of contemporary critical tastes. As for his poetry, though, literary history remains generally indifferent to his work.
Keats, as a young poet, does the right thing by tackling the Endymion project, especially if viewed as an experiment or exercise in testing limits, voice, and form. We can thus expect and see that, at this point, his poetic aspirations are compromised by dashes of minor recklessness and by developing, uneven skills. Keats is, after all, a poet of unmeasured accomplishment and measureless potential—so his closest friends believe. We will also find that, for Keats, copying out the poem in early 1818 for publication (in late April 1818) is an important moment: he sees even more clearly the poem’s limitations and patchy qualities. He vows not to write in this mode again. Keats does, however, hope to call upon the Greek tradition in future writing after he accumulates some experience (so he writes in the eventual preface to Endymion); and, by the end of 1818 and in July 1819 he actually does make a return with a couple of attempts to build upon the titanic Hyperion story; and though the poetry he resultantly writes is, qualitatively, far beyond what Endymion achieves (in two poems we know as Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion), the Hyperion project remains as two impressive fragments.
