John Keats

John Keats (October 31, 1795-February 23, 1821) was a British Romantic poet known for his rich and vivid imagery of the eternal world contrasted against the mundane mortal world. His most famous poem, The Eve of St. Agnes, superbly contrasts the ideals of love against the backdrop of a hopelessly ill-fated setting. Most of the poems written during his adult life displayed what he called "negative capability": the extremes of life’s experiences contrasted against the ideal of perfect understanding. Negative capability became the focus of Keats’ later poetry. A representative selection of his work includes, Endymion (1818); Poems (1820); and, Lamia (1820).