John Keats: The Major Works

This review is of -John Keats: The Major Works-,edited by Elizabeth Cook (Oxford World's Classics)ISBN: 0192840630, 2001, 667 pp. There are now 3 major editions of the complete poemsof John Keats. Each of them has its own excellencies.There is the -John Keats: Complete Poems-, edited byJack Stillinger (Belknap Press, Harvard) ISBN: 0674154312,-John Keats: The Complete Poems-, edited by John Barnard(Penguin Classics) ISBN: 0140422102, and also thispresent volume, edited by Elizabeth Cook, ISBN: 0192840630.A fact which both John Barnard and Elizabeth Cook point outas editors is their debt, as well as the debt of all Keatsscholars, to Jack Stillinger. As she says in her "Note onthe Text": "In deciding which source text to use I am deeplyindebted to Jack Stillinger who in -The Text of Keats's Poems- (1974) and in his subsequent edition of Keats's-Poems- (1978) presents his informed and considered argumentsfor and against each transcript and state of text. Priorto his work editors had frequently created Keats's poemsfrom a patchwork of different source texts." The glories of this Oxford Classics edition are thesame as with many of their editions, the fine "Introduction",the wondrous notes to the poems (pp. 557 - 641), an excellentselection of "Further Readings", Glossary of Classical Names, Index of Keats's Correspondents (with much helpfulbackground information about them), and an Index of PoemTitles and First Lines. In this volume, there are alsoAppendix I, "St. Agnes' Eve" as found in George Keats'smanuscript, and Appendix II, "La Belle Dame sans Mercy",as printed in the -Indicator-, 10 May 1820. Some editorsand Keats lovers feel the changes that Keats made tothe latter poem to publish in the -Indicator- mar thewondrous tone and atmosphere, so they print the firstversion.In her "Introduction," Elizabeth Cook stresses severalimportant aspects of Keats's psyche and his reverencestoward other authors (Spenser and Milton, in particular).From the side of the aspect of his psyche, she states:"Keats conceived of history as a process of *actualizing*the world's sum total of what is knowable and thinkable.In Stoic fashion he postulates a finite quantity ofworld-stuff of which Milton has used up an unfairlylarge portion, therby depleting not only his contemporaries,but posterity [later writers] as well.* * * He writes with the assumption that a certain quotaof qualities, capacities, and experiences is allotted toeach individual." In relating of Keats's sensitivity,sense of dedication, and love, she says: "In June 1818,when one brother, Tom, was dying of tuberculosis andthe other, George, planning to sail with his new bridefor America, Keats wrote to his friend Bailey, 'My Lovefor my Brothers from the early loss of our parents and even for earlier Misfortunes has grown into a affection"passing the Love of Women"." This was a section ofverse from the Old Testament regarding the love ofJonathan, King Saul's son, and David, the exiled,hunted song singer,