Shelley, Keats, and Browning: A Concise Biography
Shelley
Shelley: Born the heir to rich estates and the son of a Member of Parliament, Shelley went to University College, Oxford in 1810, but in March of the following year, he and a friend, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, were both expelled for the suspected authorship of a pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Atheism. In 1811, he met and eloped to Edinburgh with Harriet Westbrook and, one year later, went with her and her older sister first to Dublin, then to Devon and North Wales, where they stayed for six months into 1813. However, by 1814, and with the birth of two children, their marriage had collapsed, and Shelley eloped once again, this time with Mary Godwin. Along with Mary’s step-sister, the couple travelled to France, Switzerland, and Germany before returning to London, where he took a house with Mary on the edge of Great Windsor Park and wrote Alastor (1816), the poem that first brought him fame. In 1816, Shelley spent the summer on Lake Geneva with Byron and Mary, who had begun work on her Frankenstein. In the autumn of that year, Harriet drowned herself in the Serpentine in Hyde Park, and Shelley then married Mary and settled with her, in 1817, at Great Marlow, on the Thames. They later travelled to Italy, where Shelley wrote the sonnet Ozymandias (written 1818) and translated Plato’s Symposium from the Greek. Shelley himself drowned in a sailing accident in 1822.
Keats
Keats: John Keats was born on October 31, 1795, in London. His parents were Frances Jennings and Thomas Keats. John Keats was educated at Enfield School, which was known for its liberal education. While at Enfield, Keats was encouraged by Charles Cowden Clarke in his reading and writing. After the death of his parents when he was fourteen, Keats became apprenticed to a surgeon. In 1815, he became a student at Guy’s Hospital. However, after qualifying to become an apothecary-surgeon, Keats gave up the practice of medicine to become a poet. Keats had begun writing as early as 1814, and his first volume of poetry was published in 1817. In 1818, Keats took a long walking tour in the British Isles that led to a prolonged sore throat, which was to become a first symptom of the disease that killed his mother and brother, tuberculosis. After he concluded his walking tour, Keats settled in Hampstead. Here, he and Fanny Brawne met and fell in love. However, they were never able to marry because of his health and financial situation. Between the fall of 1818 and 1820, Keats produced some of his best-known works, such as La Belle Dame sans Merci and Lamia. After 1820, Keats’ illness became so severe that he had to leave England for the warmer climate of Italy. In 1821, he died of tuberculosis in Rome. He is buried there in the Protestant cemetery.
Browning
Browning: Robert Browning was born in Camberwell, a suburb of London. Young Robert spent much of his time in his father’s private library of 6000 volumes in several languages. The chief source of his education, Browning became an admirer of Elizabeth Barrett’s poetry in 1844. He began corresponding with her by letter. This was the start of one of the world’s most famous romances. Their courtship lasted until 1846, when they were married. The couple moved to Italy that same year and had a son, Pen, later in 1849. Robert did not become recognized as a poet until after Elizabeth’s death in 1861, after which he was honored for the rest of his life as a literary figure. Robert is perhaps best known for his dramatic monologue technique. In his monologues, he spoke in the voice of an imaginary or historical character. Robert had a fondness for people who lived during the Renaissance. Most of his monologues portray persons at dramatic moments in their lives. Below is a picture of Robert Browning’s grave. He is buried in Westminster Abbey, in Poet’s Corner.