Thesis: The death of John Keat's parents, the early death of his brother, and his own early
             Impending death influenced his poetry.
             John Keats was born in Moorfields, London in 1795 (portico). His father, an English coachman died when Keats was eight years old, leaving him an orphan (Student handbook 294). Keats attended school at Enfield and worked on translating Virgil's Aeneid. John Keats was the apprentice to an apothecary surgeon in 1810, but his friend and critic Leigh Hunt convinced him to leave the life of medicine to pursue poetry. In 1816, Keats officially left the medical life and published his first book of poetry in 1817. The summer of 1818, Keats toured England and Scotland. He then moved to Hampstead after the death of his brother Tim. Later that year Keats fell in love with his neighbor Fanny Brawne, however they never married. Keats died in Rome in 1820 of tuberculosis after releasing his second volume of poetry (portico).
             The first poem that shows that Keats lifetime filled with death influenced his poetry is "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again" (utoronto). In this poem, lines 2 and 3 he is telling the Syren bird to quiet itself and leave its songs to another day. This is not necessarily death, but shows the depression is his life. Line 10 speaks of the deep eternal theme, which could easily be considered death. The old oak forest, of line 11 symbolizes the journey of life.
             Keats refers to once he has made the walk through life, not to let him wander through a dream in line 12. This could mean that he does not wish to spend his old ages as a mindless man, or that he does not want his afterlife to be void of activity and worth. Lines 13 and 14 refer to the Egyptian Myth of the Phoenix. This was a bird that lived between 500 and 600 years and then it would consume itself in fire. The phoenix would then rise out of the ashes rejuvenated. The phoenix is used as...