‘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.
Inspired by 2016's Poetry Prize Theme, After Frankenstein, bestselling novelist Lynn Shepherd wrote a suitably chilling story...
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...
One of the poems whose 200th birthday we are celebrating with 2020's Keats-Shelley Prize.
The second poem 2020's Keats-Shelley Prizes are celebrating this year
Inspired by the newly published State of Nature report, we trace the erosion of wild spaces back to John Keats' nightingale
Whatever became of PB Shelley's A Poetical Essay?
Romantic poetry's first generation version of Shelley's To a Skylark. William Wordsworth wrote two poems about the (and a) songbird.
Keats-Shelley House joins the RSPB's campaign to raise awareness of extinction threats to birds across the world
A special Spotify playlist of musical songbirds to inspire entrants to 2020's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes
Two bird song poems by the one of the 19th century's greatest poets
Two robin-songbird poems by another of the 19th century's greatest poets. Inspiration for 2020's Keats-Shelley Prizes.
Are songbirds superior to poets? Is birdsong better than books? William Wordsworth wonders, lonely as a cloud, in this poem written in 1798.
A nightingale flies with an Oxford Movement
Three closely observed nightingales by the birder's favourite poet, John Clare
Two larks closely observed in winter by the birder's favourite poet, John Clare
Simon Barnes talks Songbirds, nature, birding and considers who wrote the better nightingale: John Keats or John Clare?
Simon Barnes talks skylarks and nightingales, wonders how Keats' bird could sing and fly, and considers the threat of exinction hanging over us all
The Keats-Shelley Synchronised Reading Group starts 1st April, 12 noon GMT with Shakespeare's sonnet 44.
The acclaimed actor sent this reading of Shakespeare's 44th sonnet from Los Angeles
8th April, 12 noon GMT: we read John Keats' first published poem - the sonnet, 'O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell'
Week 3 - 2pm GMT, Thursday, 16 April - Shelley's Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
All four episodes of the Keats-Shelley Podcast with Simon Barnes are in one easy-to-access location
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.
Wednesday, 29th April, 2pm GMT - Mary Shelley's The Last Man - Lionel Verney's arrival in Rome
2pm GMT, 6 March - we celebrate John Keats' great May odes, beginning (no irony intended) with his Ode on Indolence
Week 7 - 2pm GMT on Wedneday 13th May: John Keats' Ode to Psyche, with a side order of ST Coleridge's Psyche
2 pm GMT, 20 May - John Keats' Ode to Melancholy and Charlotte Smith
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.
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.
Matthew Sweeney, who judged the Keats-Shelley Prize for almost 20 years, offered sage advice to new generations of young poets in 2018.