A Bit Of A Gap

I'm a bit annoyed at myself for not having access to my Oxford Collected Poems of Keats at the moment. It resides in its usual place on the shelves at Maison KL, but it was pretty obvious I might need it when tackling Motion's biog of the great Romantic, and it turns out that the biographer and former Poet Laureate includes so much close detail on the works that I feel a bit lost without it. I've just finished the chapters covering the writing of Endymion and they really don't make a whole lot of sense unless you're looking at the actual poem.

Bit of a confession here: sad - and embarrassing - to say, I've never read Endymion from beginning to end. Oh dear.

Which has been making me think of just how many other stone cold classics I've never come to grips with. Byron's Don Juan immediately jumps to mind, though for some reason I don't feel too embarrassed about that. Having said that, I suppose it's a bit of a stretch to claim Endymion as a classic considering the bad press it tends to pick up. But it's obviously major Keats and a bit of a gap in my reading to say the least.

The thing about Motion's account of the writing of the poem is that it creates an urgent desire to read the thing asap. One sure sign of an excellent biography, I reckon.