SOURCE: “Chatterton and Keats: The Need for Close Examination,” in Keats-Shelley Review, No. 10, Spring 1996, pp. 35-50.

In the following essay, Morrison argues that John Keats's poem “To Autumn” was strongly influenced by several poetic works produced by Chatterton. The critic observes that Keats preserves but softens the death imagery present in Chatterton's evocations of autumn, and remarks that Keats tried hard to overcome Chatterton's influence in order to present his own original voice.

John Keats's philosophical writings shed some light upon his awareness of the influence of other writers upon him, whether consciously or subconsciously. As with any writer who is also a reader, Keats does not deny that material he reads exerts an influence upon his own writings:

It is a wretched thing to confess; but it is a very fact that not one word I ever utter can be taken for granted as an opinion growing...