Keats and Lucrece

Summary

Among the papers at Keats House, Hampstead, is a marked-up copy of Shakespeare's Poetical Works, ignored, in large part, both by Keatsians and by students of his 'Presider'. Caroline Spurgeon may give us, in her classic study, the gist of Keats's notes to the plays, Venus and Adonis and the Sonnets; but, like every other praiser of Keats's 'Shakespearian' qualities, she neglects the marks and remarks which criss-cross A Lover's Complaint and Lucrece. The omission is a grave one, not only because it reinforces assumptions about what is distinctively 'Shakespearian' which Keats, allowed a hearing, might correct, but because the gathering of poems - a loan perhaps, then gift, from J. H. Reynolds - was so constant a companion and informing an influence during Keats's productive years that it deserves the fullest attention from those who wish to understand the growth of his genius.

Perhaps the most surprising feature of this volume is the dense underlining it shows throughout A Lover's Complaint. The poem has been read closely and with enjoyment. Keats and Reynolds, parleying, it appears, through annotation, underline, endorse each other's underlining with verticals in the margin, redouble those, and add enthusiastic footnotes.