John Keats – whose poems and letters remain some of the most popular and analysed in English literature – penned some of his greatest works right here on the Isle of Wight.
Although Keats’ wanderings included numerous picturesque localities on the Island, the romantic poet is best remembered in Shanklin, where inns, hotels and a green have immortalised the name of the literary great.
Despite Keats’ great fame, the poet had only been in print for 4 years when he died of tuberculosis in Rome in 1821, at the tender age of 25. However, he paid 2 visits to the Island during his short but productive life – in part in a vain attempt to return to good health – in both 1817 and 1819.
John Keats first came to the Isle of Wight aged 21 on 17th April 1817. He arrived at Cowes before departing for Newport and then Shanklin. Finding the seaside resort too expensive for an impoverished poet, he spends the week at Carisbrooke.
The poet was much taken by the beauty of the Island, exclaiming that:
“the Island ought to be called primrose Island.”
He was also taken with the view of Carisbrooke Castle from his window. In a letter to his friend Reynolds, Keats enthuses:
“I intend to walk over the Island east – West – North South – I have not seen many specimens of Ruins – I don’t think however I shall ever see one to surpass Carisbrooke Castle.”
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Keats speculated that the colony of jackdaws at the castle may have descended from those present there during the time of King Charles I’s imprisonment, stating:
“The Keep within side is one Bower of ivy – a Colony of Jackdaws have been there many years. I dare say I have seen many a descendant of some old cawer who peeped through the Bars at Charles the first, when he was there in Confinement.”
It was during his first sojourn on the Island that Keats first glimpsed the unspoilt beauties of Shanklin, which then had a population of just 150 inhabitants.
The romantic poet said of the seaside resort, then little more than a hamlet:
“Shanklin is a most beautiful place – sloping wood and meadow ground reaches round the Chine, which is a cleft between the Cliffs of the depth of nearly 300 feet at least.”
It was in Shanklin that Keats wrote the sonnet On the Sea, which contains the immortal lines:
“O ye who have your eyeballs vext and tir’d
Feast them on the wideness of the Sea”
Keats’ next visit to the Island in 1819 was when he was at the height of his literary powers. He arrives in Shanklin on 28th June, staying at the then thatched Eglantine Cottage.
This was not a good time for the poet – his money was running out; he had fallen in love with Miss Fanny Brawne but did not have the resources to take her hand in marriage; his health was failing.
However, it was during Keats’ stay in Eglantine Cottage that what is regarded as his greatest work – Ode to a Nightingale – was published.
Ode to a Nightingale begins:
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
Keats spent 6 weeks in Shanklin, during which time he took in the sea views, watched boats sail by, enjoyed the downs, dales, woods, sands, cliffs, rocks, paths, romantic cottages and eating lobster. In his correspondence, he mentions Steephill, Bonchurch, and – of course – Shanklin Chine.
The poet described 19th-century visitors to the Island as:
“hunting after the picturesque like beagles.”
During that century – perhaps attracted in part by Keats’ verse – the Isle of Wight became the premier spot in the United Kingdom for ‘picturesque tourism’.
Sadly, the original Eglantine Cottage was pulled down in 1873, although a bed & breakfast – called Keats Cottage – was built on its site at 76 High Street Shanklin.
In 1898, the cliff promenade in Shanklin was renamed Keats Green (it had previously been known as Cliff Green) in honour of the poet.
In November 1910, Keats Green was officially marked with a plaque, which read:
Keats Green / A Thing of Beauty / Is a Joy Forever / Endymion / John Keats / 1795-1821.
Keats has also been commemorated in Shanklin by the Keats Green Hotel and the former Keats Inn.
If any readers know anything more of Keats’s visits to the Isle of Wight or places associated with his name, leave a comment…
Keats stayed in Castle Road, Newport, in Ferncot. The house was lived in by my great aunts, the Milgate sisters, up to the 1970s. My godfather tried to get a blue plaque commemorating Keats’ stay, but was insuccessful
Blue plaques would be good for tourism
crazy they refused.
Another great story the consumption hospital at Ventnor came to late for that great poet
What is happening to Keats cottage in Shanklin?
How times have changed, Shanklin too expensive.
Sadly nowdays Shanklin is home to many undesirables.