JOHN KEATS AND FANNY BRAWNE

JOHN KEATS AND FANNY BRAWNE 

Throughout most of his life John Keats was confused by women, and saw little value in love and marriage. All this changed when he met Frances (Fanny) Brawne between August and December of 1818. While he was still confused by her, Fanny was a woman he could love, and whom Keats saw as an equal. The last three years of Keats’ life were a mixture of pain and pleasure as Keats fell in love with and then was forced to watch Fanny from afar as he lay dying. This gamut of emotions that John Keats felt for and as a result of Fanny Brawne can be readily seen in his many letters to her and his later poetry. Poems like “Bright Star” and “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” reflect the dual nature of Keats’s muse and his feelings regarding women in general, and the fact that these are still two of the most widely read poems by Keats is a testament to his truth and skill in conveying his emotions. In addition to the information and clues that can be gathered from his writings regarding his relationship with Fanny there was a film released in 2009 titled Bright Star that examines the life of Keats from the death of his brother Tom from tuberculosis and his meeting Fanny Brawne in 1818 to his own death of tuberculosis in 1821. This film does a superb job at visualizing the time period and relationship between Fanny Brawne and John Keats, as well as highlighting on the troubles this relationship caused with Keats’ friends, such as Charles Brown. It is clear to see that the meeting of Fanny Brawne in December of 1818 forever changed the life of John Keats; his poetry would not have been the same, his views on women and love would have been different, and perhaps even his untimely demise at the age of 25 may have been prevented if he had been ‘free’ to leave for Italy and better climates sooner.

John Keats’ life began on the 31st of October 1795, when he was born to Thomas and Frances Keats in London. Over the next 23 years Keats gains three brothers (George, Tom, Edward), a sister (Frances Mary), and loses his brother Edward and both parents; his mother died from tuberculosis also. He also attends medical school, becomes a surgeon, and begins to write poetry and have it published. On the 5th May, 1816 “O Solitude” was published paving the way for future published works such as Endymion and Poems, and in late 1818-early 1819 he meets Fanny Brawne and writes “Bright Star,” “To Fanny” and “La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” From this point forward John Keats had a decidedly focused mind, with his emotions and thoughts always returning to his love, Fanny Brawne.

This extremely strong attraction to Miss Fanny Brawne grew out of a feeling by Keats that Fanny was his equal. “Perhaps the main aspect of the relationship lies in the fact that Keats seems able from the start to speak to Fanny without the kind of crippling self-consciousness or tongue-tied self-annulment he felt in the presence of other women” (White, R.S. John Keats A Literary Life. Pg.146). This feeling of being on a more equal footing with Fanny Brawne was unusual for Keats as he generally found talking to and interacting with women to be troublesome and tedious. In a letter to Bailey the Clergyman Keats writes,

I am certain I have not a right feeling towards Women – at this moment I am striving to be just to them but I cannot – …When I was a Schoolboy I thought a fair Woman a pure Goddess… I thought them ethereal above Men – I find them perhaps equal – great by comparison is very small … When among Men I have not evil thoughts, no malice, no spleen – I feel free to speak or to be silent – I can listen and from every one I can learn…When I am among Women I have evil thoughts, malice, spleen – I cannot speak or be silent – I am full of Suspicions and therefore listen to no thing – I am in a hurry to be gone…Yet with such feelings I am happier alone among Crowds of men, by myself or with a friend or two … an obstinate Prejudice can seldom be produced but from a Gordian complication of feelings…(Keats, John. Selected Letter of John Keats. Ed. Grant F. Scott. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2002. Pg.169).

The simple ability to have a conversation with Fanny Brawne made her a woman unlike any other that Keats had met. Not needing to unravel the ‘Gordian’ knot of feelings made a relationship with a woman possible for John Keats with Fanny Brawne. Fanny Brawne was a woman unlike others, and this difference is what attracted Keats and made her someone he could talk to.

Despite this unusual ability to have a discussion with Fanny Brawne their relationship was not without its share of problems. Before deciding he was in love with Fanny John Keats had a few initial things to say about her in a letter written to his brother and sister-in-law, George and Georgina Keats, that spanned from the 16th of December 1818 to the 4th of January 1819;

Mrs Brawne…is <her> a very nice woman – and her daughter senior [Fanny] is I think beautiful and elegant, graceful, silly, fashionable and strange we have a little tiff now and then – and she behaves a little better, or I must have sheered off (Keats. Selected Letters. Pg.218).

Days later in the same letter Keats again writes on the subject of Miss Brawne,

Shall I give you Miss Brawn? She is about my height, with a fine style of countenance of the lengthen’d sort. She wants sentiment in every feature. She manages to make her hair look well; her nostrils are fine, though a little painful. Her mouth is bad and good; her Profile is better than her full-face which indeed is not full but pale and thin without showing any bone. Her shape is very graceful and so are her movements. Her Arms are good, her hands baddish, her feet tolerable… she is ignorant, monstrous in her behavior, flying out in all directions, calling people such names that I was forced lately to make use of the term Minx (Keats. Selected Letters. Pg.222).

These are just some initial comments, but it is clear to see that Keats was intrigued by this little ‘Minx’.

Prior to Fanny Brawne Keats’ views on love were not quite so generous. He really saw little purpose in love, and found it to be tedious. In a letter to his brother George in September of 1819, just a month before he wrote his first love letter to Fanny, Keats writes, “Nothing strikes me so forcibly with a sense of the rediculous as love – A Man in love I do think cuts the sorryest figure in the world – Even when I know a poor fool to be really in pain about it, I could burst out laughing in his face – His pathetic visage becomes irresistible” (Keats. Selected Letters. Pg.361). Keats was so against the idea and result of love that he thought it and the reactions it produced in others to be simply laughable. Just a month later this same man was writing to Fanny Brawne about how consumed he was with her; one of those laughable side effects of love that he previously mocked. Keats, referring to Fanny as his ‘sweet girl,’ writes, “I am living in yesterday: I was in complete fascination all day. I feel myself at your mercy…You dazzled me…” (Pg. 429). Already it is getting a little thick with love talk. Keats then writes about a story about himself that his friend, Charles Brown, had told, that he feared would cause him to lose Fanny’s affection. When he thought about losing her love he wrote to her that, “…I have had a thousand kisses, for which with my whole soul I thank love – but if you should deny me the thousand and first – ‘twould put me to the proof how great a misery I could live through” (Keats. The Letters of John Keats. Pg. 430). So not only is he guilty of his prior labeled silly behavior, but he feels so strongly about her that if he were to lose her love it would test his very will to go on living.

From this point forward the relationship between John Keats and Fanny Brawne blossomed. Keats and Miss Brawne were in love, but there were pressing matters that needed attention. First of all there was the issue of money. Keats was apprenticed to the surgeon Thomas Hammond, and went to and entered Guy’s Hospital in 1815 as a student, later to become a surgeon’s assistant, and a licensed physician in his own right. Around the same time Keats started writing and publishing poetry and eventually gave up his career as a surgeon and began to write and live off his poetry in earnest. Unfortunately, the money that trickled in from his poetry was a meager allowance and prevented him from fully realizing his dreams and goals. When John Keats and Fanny Brawne had completely fallen in love they became engaged, but due to John’s financial issues, had to keep the engagement secret. “Because Keats could not afford to support a wife, they kept the engagement a secret from all but their closest friends. (It remained a secret to the general public till 1878, when his letters to her were finally published)”. The two later became ‘publically’ engaged for a time, but the tuberculosis that had claimed his brother Tom was lurking around the corner. As the disease became worse Keats began to weaken and had to be confined indoors. While in quarantine the greatest pain that John Keats felt was having to watch his beloved from afar. In the film Bright Star, based on Jane Campion’s book about John Keats and Fanny Brawne’s three-year relationship, this pain and longing is evident. Once the film moves onto the end period of Keats’ life we are shown many scenes of Keats wallowing in self-pity and despair as Fanny Brawne frolics and laughs beyond the pane of glass.

Jane Campion’s novel and film take their name from the Keats poem of the same name. Using Bright Star as the title and inspiration for an examination of Keats and Miss Brawne’s relationship is apropos, as the poem was written during their relationship and for Fanny Brawne. This poem is a loving and heartfelt representation of how Keats felt. The title and starting line have a dual representation; “Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art”(Keats. Norton Anthology Vol.D. Pg.898). Both bright and steadfast as the North Star, and steadfast as his love for Fanny. Later in the poem Keats writes, “…yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, / Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast…”(Keats. Norton. “Bright Star…” Pg.898), and we get the strong sense that when Keats is with Miss Brawne he feels centered and grounded. She is his rock. In a letter written to Fanny Brawne on the 11th of October 1819 he tells her, “You dazzled me. There is nothing in the world so bright and delicate.”(Keats. Selected Letters. Pg.389), however, this was not always the case.

Along with the good came the bad; love was followed by jealousy as Keats was forced to be away from his beloved. Some of these emotions of pain and jealousy can be felt and seen in his poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” which is translated as ‘the beautiful woman without mercy.’ The woman without mercy is Fanny, and the knight who has been tempted is Keats. Like Keats, the knight is taken in and entranced by the beauty of and his love for the “Belle Dame.” The knight in the poem is sickly and dying, which mirrors the real life health issues that would eventually take Keats from Fanny and life. The woman is sweet and beautiful and looks at Keats/the Knight “She look’d at me as she did love, / and made sweet moan”(Keats. Norton. “La Belle…” Pg.899-900), only to later leave him. Once the knight/Keats is separated from the fairy woman/Fanny he is left feeling alone; “And this is why I sojourn here, / Alone and palely loitering…”(Keats. Norton. “La Belle…” Pg.899-900). On the 23rd of February 1821 John Keats died of tuberculosis.

After his death Fanny Brawne wrote to his sister, Fanny Keats, about John:

I am patient, resigned, very resigned. I know my Keats is happy, I know my Keats is happy, happier a thousand times than he could have been here, for Fanny, you do not, you never can know how much he has suffered. So much that I do believe, were it in my power I would not bring him back. All that grieves me now is that I was not with him, and so near it as I was. . . . he at least was never deceived about his complaint, though the Doctors were ignorant and unfeeling enough to send him to that wretched country to die, for it is now known that his recovery was impossible before he left us, and he might have died here with so many friends to soothe him and me me with him. All we have to console ourselves with is the great joy he felt that all his misfortunes were at an end.

The relationship between Fanny Brawne and John Keats was unexpected and tumultuous, leaving Keats dumbstruck by love, and later by jealousy, as he withered away. The feelings of his friends towards this relationship and financial strains prevented Keats and Fanny from marrying earlier, and death prevented them from ever marrying. By examining the letters that Keats wrote to Miss Brawne and others, as well as by examining some of his poetry from the last three years of his life, it is easy to see the impact Fanny Brawne had on John Keats’ life and career.