by Matt » Tue Aug 31, 2004 5:33 pm
Here are my first impressions of what Keats' friends were to him and to be honest Stephen, I'm probably merely echoing the views implied by Andrew Motion in his biography. Anyways! Here's what comes to mind when I think of these men:
SEVERN- A close friend of Keats but their relationship was different to that of Keats and Brown. Severn almost idolised Keats, I feel, and Keats looked upon Severn as he did his younger brothers but with less love! He felt a sort of protective figure to Severn, even though it was Severn who was supposed to be looking after Keats. Keats loved him as a friend sure, but perhaps got irritated by his almost cartoon like behaviour-clumsy and exaggerated.
BROWN- Keats' best friend. Simple as that. Two men who were on the same intellectual wavelength BUT also on the same wavelength in terms of what male friends are more often than not about: Good times and good women. Like best friends nowadays all except different in that one of them was an artisitic genius (that'd be Keats by the way) and the other strived to be. Brown's realisation that he would never be as poetic as Keats did not result in resentment though. Quite the opposite. Instead he was a guide to Keats, a rock. If there was any resentment it was from Keats. Keats secretly and sometimes perhaps, overtly chided Brown for his flirting (and shagging) of anything that had a vagina (isnt vagina such a crude word. I can find no word for the female gentitalia that quite does it justice) But resentment between two male friends is often found even now as it was then. And it is always because of women. Fact.
LEIGH HUNT- They say that Keats and a few close friends once spent a whole evening discussing the derivation of the word c--t. I wonder if they were also thinking of a fitting word with which to rhyme with the name of the snidy, weasle known as Leigh Hunt?
My views on this man are very low. For those of you who have read 'The picture of Dorian Gray', Leigh Hunt seems to be a proper Henry Wotton. He ensnared men and if he thought something better was coming along then he would leave the men he'd trapped to fend for themselves. Even the picture of him shows him to be rat-like. Hmmmm
HAYDON- Funny, interesting bloke. Annoying though. ANd pompous too.