Love Sunshine

Keat to the heat

I may have given the impression that I'm something of a one-trick pony in the circus ring of belles lettres. Just how much copy can you squeeze out of the sun, you may well wonder? Well, let me tell you, I've only scratched the surface. But taking stock, and applying some Savlon to that well-scratched sun-swollen surface, I post this from Rome where I have scurried, to embark on my next project. One that has NOTHING TO DO WITH SUNSHINE*. A wee biography of Keats.

And I do mean wee. But he was a small chap and didn't live long, so it may just be possible. I've been hard at it. I've visited his grave, and the excellent museum in the house where he died now dedicated to Keats and Shelley, and the other one. Byron, who I think should be barred for being so mean to poor Keats; but he was a hit with the ladies in life, so is no doubt a posthumous pull. So I came to where he quit his tragic life to start my account of it. Yes, Hampstead (where they have another Keats House) is closer; Moorfields (where he was born) closer still; and Enfield, where he went to school, somewhere north of here and may involve the Northern Line. And I suppose these might all be more logical places to start a biography. But I figured I shouldn't rush my transformation from apostrophiser of suntan oil to serious literary biographer, so thought I'd start by lapping up the 'atmosphere' of Keats' final destination and 35 degrees and sunny. How was I to know Enfield might attempt something of the like itself over the last couple of days? Keats, who gave up medicine for poetry, was conscious that Apollo was the patron god of both. So I thought I'd segue into my new role by paying due reverence to his more famous aspect. Sun god. I'll deal with the mists and mellow fruitfulness in due course... Ciao Ciao for now.

*It may actually have something to do with sunshine. Keats was acutely weather conscious, as his letters reveal. As I've argued in my book and will no doubt trot it out again, To Autumn is partly a celebration of a good-old-fashioned late-summer scorcher, coming after a run of lousy summers. Don't be fooled by thinking Romantics only dug storms; as I will declare, sun-worshipers are the true Romantics of the skies.