John Keats

Spenserian Stanza. Written At The Close Of Canto II, Book V, Of "The Faerie Queene"

In after-time, a sage of mickle lore Yclep'd Typographus, the Giant took, And did refit his limbs as heretofore, And made him read in many a learned book, And into many a lively legend look; Thereby in goodly themes so training him, That all his brutishness he quite forsook, When, meeting Artegall and Talus grim, The one he struck stone-blind, the other's eyes wox dim. 'This stanza, given by Lord Houghton in the Life, Letters &c. (1848), Volume I, page 281, was preceded by the following note:-- "The copy of Spenser which Keats had in daily use, contains the following stanza, inserted at the close of Canto II, Book V. His sympathies were very much on the side of the revolutionary 'Gyant,' who 'undertook for to repair' the 'realms and nations run awry,' and to suppress 'tyrants that make men subject to their law', 'and lordings curbe that commons over-aw,' while he grudged the legitamate victory, as he rejected the conservative philosophy, of the 'righteous Artegall' and ex post facto prophecy, his conviction of the ultimate triumph of freedom and equality by the power of transmitted knowledge. " I have no data whereby to fix the period of this commentary of Keats on the political attitude of Spenser; but I should judge it to belong to the end of 1818 or thereabouts. The copy of Spenser in which the stanza was written is not now forthcoming: it passed into the hands of Miss Brawne, and was lost, with other books, many years after Keats's death. ' ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895.