John Keats was born in 1795 and wouldn’t live to see his twenty-sixth birthday. Oddly enough, none of his family would see it either. One by one, Keats would have to face death in the eye and try to overcome major losses in his short-lived life. The life of John Keats, who is credited as being one of great Romantic poets, was in itself a tragedy, beginning with the death of his parents when he was a young child, the death of his brother Tom, and finally the death and demise of Keats himself.

Keats lost both of his parents before he reached his twenties. The death of Keats parents forced young Keats to take on the role of father to his younger siblings (Kipperman 180). Keats first lost a parent when his father died from an accident when he fell off his horse and suffered a head injury (180). “On the night of 15 April 1804, when Keats had been in school less than a year, an accident happened that would alter his life and proved to be the first in a series of losses and dislocations that would pursue him throughout his brief life” (180). The death of John’s father would indirectly lead to the unfair distribution of the inheritance that he left behind for his children (Bate 1

Keats was soon beginning to feel the effects of his brother’s illness on himself (460). Aileen Ward tells of when Keats went to visit his brother after getting news of his increasing illness, a few months before his death.

Tom was not better but much worse. Early in August, he had had a

nervousness of the last stages of consumption. […] Neither one could now deny the truth to each other: Tom was dying. Keats had known this would come in time; he hardly could have guessed how soon. (Ward 210)

Even with the tragic losses of two parents, his brother Tom, and finally the sickness and death of Keats himself, he still had the power to emerge as one of the great Romantic poets of British literature. His life was a complete tragedy filled with illness, death, and loss, all the while being short lived. However, the losses that John Keats suffered were the backdrop to his works that now make him famous.

After the death of his brother Tom, John Keats had himself and his own problems to deal with. The day after Tom’s death, Keats went to his friend Brown’s home and told him about the death of his brother. Keats, who now had no place to live accepted the kindness of Brown and moved in with him at Wentworth Place. For the next year and five months, Keats was still trying to make sense of his brother’s death and he began to wonder where his life would go on from this point (Motion 327-328).

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