The Keats-Shelley Blog

Keats-Shelley 200 Evaluation Report

Read More

A Brief History of Elegy

Read More

A Brief History of Elegy: IntroductionWhat is an elegy?

Read More

A Brief History of Elegy: Part 1Elegies Before Elegy

Read More

A Brief History of Elegy: Part 2Elegiac Couplets

Read More

A Brief History of Elegy: Part 3The Pastoral Elegy

Read More

A Brief History of Elegy: Part 4The Universal Elegy

Read More

A Brief History of Elegy: Part 5The Romantic (not romantic) Elegy

Read More

A Brief History of Elegy: Part 6Adonais

Read More

Keats-Shelley Poetry Prizes 2021: Readings

Watch videos of all six finalists for 2021's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Poetry

Read More

Keats-Shelley Poetry List: 11 Writ in Waters

11 wonderful and weird things inspired by John Keats' epitaph

Read More

John Keats’ Final Voyage 2.0: The Enhanced Director’s Cut (Extended Remix)

Read More

The Keats-Shelley Prize Podcast in conversation with Mark Wallinger

The Turner Prize-winning artist discusses John Keats, his love of literature and Writ in Water

Read More

‘Writ in Water/Writ on Water’: The Hard Life by Flann O’Brien

Keats-Shelley Prize 2021: errors, puns and John Keats' epitaph

Read More

The Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome: A Keats-Shelley Prize Podcast with Nicholas Stanley-Price

Historian and heritage expert Nicholas Stanley-Price on Keats' funeral, the 300 year history of the Non-Catholic Cemetery (and what to call it)

Read More

Christina Rossetti, John Keats and the Pre-Raphaelites: A Keats-Shelley Prize Podcast with Dinah Roe

Dinah Roe on the Rossettis' Anglo-Italian heritage, Keats vs Shelley rivalries, and Christina's 'Writ in Water'

Read More

‘Writ in Water’ poems, Dante ‘Geezer’ Rossetti and John ‘Cockney’ Keats

Dr Dinah Roe reads and discusses Rossetti's 'Writ in Water' poems on the Keats-Shelley Prize Podcast

Read More

Young Romantics Prize Resources

Links to websites, videos, texts and podcasts for teachers and entrants to the Keats-Shelley and Young Romantic Prizes

Read More

Writ in Water, Glass and Lemon Juice: A Keats-Shelley Prize Podcast with Adam Smyth

Adam Smyth, Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford, explores Keats' epitaph

Read More

Writ in Water Music Playlist 3: Cry Me a River

Music to inspire poets and essayists entering 2021's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes. This week's playlist theme: Rivers.

Read More

A Q&A with Angus Graham-Campbell

We talk to the author of 'Writ in Water', a new BBC Radio 4 play about the last days of John Keats.

Read More

‘On Keats’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley 'Writ in Water' Inspiration: Poem 3

Read More

Erica Jong’s Writing Advice for Young Romantics

Read More

Writ in Water Music Playlist 2: The Sea

Music to inspire poets and essayists entering 2021's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes. This week's playlist theme: The Sea. Elgar, Fennesz, Debussy, Peggy Lee, Blur, John Lee Hooker and of course Jaws.

Read More

‘The Grave of Keats’ by Oscar WildeWrit in Water Inspiration: Poem 2

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize 2021: Lesson Questions

Read More

‘Writ in Water’ Music Playlist 1: ‘Writ in Water’

Music to inspire poets and essayists. This week music inspired by 'Writ in Water'. Fela Kuti, Handel, PJ Harvey, Jonny Greenwood, Ella Fitzgerald and Deep Purple.

Read More

‘Writ in Water’ by Stella GibbonsWrit in Water Inspiration: Poem 1

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Inspiration: Matthew Sweeney’s Writing Advice to Young Romantics Advice for Young Poets - from Matthew Sweeney

Matthew Sweeney, who judged the Keats-Shelley Prize for almost 20 years, offered sage advice to new generations of young poets in 2018.

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Inspiration. Will Kemp’s 16 Tips for Writing Poetry

The Winner of 2016's Keats-Shelley Prize and Keats-Shelley Poetry Judge offers advice to Young and Not So Young Romantics

Read More

The Grave of John Keats

Burying a Protestant in nineteenth-century Rome was a dangerous business. Such was the hostility to non-Catholics that the authorities insisted on their funerals taking place at night; sometimes the mourners had to be protected by soldiers. So it was before dawn on 26th February 1821 that John Keats’s body was taken through the city. If you visit the “Non-Catholic” Cemetery today, as it is now called, since it includes many people of other religions, you won’t find Keats’s name on his gravestone.

Read More

Odes for John Keats

Anthony Gardner celebrates on Keats-Shelley's new publication - odes written by contemporary poets to mark the bicentenary of John Keats. Now available as an E-book.

Read More

Week 8: Keats-Shelley Synchronised Reading Group - Melancholy

2 pm GMT, 20 May - John Keats' Ode to Melancholy and Charlotte Smith

Read More

Week 7: Keats-Shelley Synchronised Reading Group - Two Psyches

Week 7 - 2pm GMT on Wedneday 13th May: John Keats' Ode to Psyche, with a side order of ST Coleridge's Psyche

Read More

Week 6: Keats-Shelley Synchronised Reading Group - John Keats’ Ode on Indolence

2pm GMT, 6 March - we celebrate John Keats' great May odes, beginning (no irony intended) with his Ode on Indolence

Read More

Week 5: Keats-Shelley Synchronised Reading Group - Mary Shelley’s The Last Man

Wednesday, 29th April, 2pm GMT - Mary Shelley's The Last Man - Lionel Verney's arrival in Rome

Read More

Week 4: Keats-Shelley Synchronised Reading Group - Songbird Special

Thursday, 23 April, 1pm GMT - join us to read John Keats' Ode to a Nightingale and/or PB Shelley's To a Skylark. To mark the announcement of the winners of 2020's Keats-Shelley Prizes on Monday 27th April.

Read More

Keats-Shelley Podcast - Simon Barnes’ Songbirds

All four episodes of the Keats-Shelley Podcast with Simon Barnes are in one easy-to-access location

Read More

Week 3: Keats-Shelley Synchronised Reading Group - Shelley’s Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

Week 3 - 2pm GMT, Thursday, 16 April - Shelley's Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

Read More

Week 2: Keats-Shelley Synchronised Reading Group - Keats’ To Solitude

8th April, 12 noon GMT: we read John Keats' first published poem - the sonnet, 'O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell'

Read More

Julian Sands joins Keats-Shelley’s ‘Per Tutti’ Synchronised Reading Group

The acclaimed actor sent this reading of Shakespeare's 44th sonnet from Los Angeles

Read More

Week 1: Keats-Shelley Synchronised Reading Group - Shakespeare’s Sonnet 44

The Keats-Shelley Synchronised Reading Group starts 1st April, 12 noon GMT with Shakespeare's sonnet 44.

Read More

KEATS-SHELLEY PODCAST - A CONVERSATION WITH SIMON BARNES, 2020’S KEATS-SHELLEY PRIZE CHAIR (PART 2)

Simon Barnes talks skylarks and nightingales, wonders how Keats' bird could sing and fly, and considers the threat of exinction hanging over us all

Read More

Keats-Shelley Podcast - A Conversation with Simon Barnes, 2020’s Keats-Shelley Prize Chair (Part 1)

Simon Barnes talks Songbirds, nature, birding and considers who wrote the better nightingale: John Keats or John Clare?

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Songbird Poem Of The Week 10 - John Clare’s Larks in Winter

Two larks closely observed in winter by the birder's favourite poet, John Clare

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Songbird Poet Of The Week 9 - John Clare

Three closely observed nightingales by the birder's favourite poet, John Clare

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Songbird Poem of the Week 8 - The Nightingale by John Keble

A nightingale flies with an Oxford Movement

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Songbird Poem of the Week 7 - The Tables Turned by William Wordsworth

Are songbirds superior to poets? Is birdsong better than books? William Wordsworth wonders, lonely as a cloud, in this poem written in 1798.

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Songbird Poet of the Week 6 - Emily Dickinson

Two robin-songbird poems by another of the 19th century's greatest poets. Inspiration for 2020's Keats-Shelley Prizes.

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Songbird Poet of the Week 5 - Christina Rossetti

Two bird song poems by the one of the 19th century's greatest poets

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Songbird Playlist

A special Spotify playlist of musical songbirds to inspire entrants to 2020's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Songbird Poem of the Week 4 - The Nightingale by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Read More

Keats-Shelley House joins the RSPB’s Let Nature Sing Take Over

Keats-Shelley House joins the RSPB's campaign to raise awareness of extinction threats to birds across the world

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Songbird Poems of the Week 3 - William Wordsworth’s Two Skylarks

Romantic poetry's first generation version of Shelley's To a Skylark. William Wordsworth wrote two poems about the (and a) songbird.

Read More

2020’s Young Romantics Poster

Read More

2020’s Keats-Shelley Prize Poster

Read More

Michael Rosen’s 2019 Keats-Shelley Prize Talk

Whatever became of PB Shelley's A Poetical Essay?

Read More

World Animal Day 2019 - John Keats’ Immortal Nightingale?

Inspired by the newly published State of Nature report, we trace the erosion of wild spaces back to John Keats' nightingale

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Songbird Poem of the Week 2 - PB Shelley’s To a Skylark

The second poem 2020's Keats-Shelley Prizes are celebrating this year

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize Songbird Poem of the Week 1 - John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale

One of the poems whose 200th birthday we are celebrating with 2020's Keats-Shelley Prize.

Read More

Michael O’Neill: A Tribute by Duncan Wu

Michael O’Neill was one of the foremost editors of Shelley’s poetry and prose. Shelley is a notoriously difficult poet to edit. ‘Prometheus Unbound’ alone, with its bizarre mixture of manuscript and early printed sources, none of them in any sense final, is a snare of traps and false leads. Yet Michael’s work on that and other, equally challenging texts makes the task of editing look easy...

Read More

Keats-Shelley Prize 2019: Byron’s Don Juan turns 200Sue Bradbury celebrates the birth of Lord Byron's epic satire

Read More

The Prometheus ProjectA Very Short Story by Lynn Shepherd

Inspired by 2016's Poetry Prize Theme, After Frankenstein, bestselling novelist Lynn Shepherd wrote a suitably chilling story...

Read More

LIBERTYRomantics, Radicals, Revolution

‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!’ wrote William Wordsworth as the French Revolution took fire in 1789. He was not the only poet to embrace this, the first modern rebellion championing the Rights of Man. ‘Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood’ became the watchwords of a generation which had had enough of the madness of George III, the ludicrous excesses of the Prince Regent, and the repressive dictates of both Church and State.

Read More