SOURCE: "John Keats," in A Literary History of England, edited by Albert C. Baugh, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1948, pp. 1241-51.

In the following essay, originally published in 1948, Chew and Altick offer a brief overview of Keats's life and works. The critics conclude by observing the impact of Keats on Victorian arts and literature.

Keats,¹ like Théophile Gautier, was "a man for whom the physical world exists." His genius was objective and concrete, moving not so readily in the world of abstract thought as in the world of imaginative realization.² Yet critics who regard him as the lover and creator of sensuous beauty are opposed by those who contend that he is a great philosophic poet.³ The truth probably lies between these two extremes. Efforts to synthesize his ideas do not carry conviction, for later views of life would, had he lived longer, probably have been as much subject to...