books/silk covered chairs/library room/chandelier in Keat's room/window from outside
We went to John Keat's apartment where he spent the last months of his life in Rome. I'm not going to pretend I'm a poetry expert or anything; but it was really cool to be in a place with its walls entirely lined with books (a complete dream of mine). They also had some letters from Oscar Wilde, who I actually do like quite a lot. Even though the memorial had nothing to do with Rome or Italy, except for that it is located there, it was still inspiring and made me long for my lowly library (aka a bookshelf) back home.
6 comments:
I can't quite interpret the drawing on the plate bearing the texts about Keats.
The upper elongated shapes look like a lyra but it doesn't explain the other shapes.
um well the top part is Italian ("L'inglese poeta Giovanni Keats mente maravigliosa quanto precoce mori in questa casa li 24 Febbraio 1821 ventesimosesto dell'eta sua" in case you know Italian too haha). The bottom part says in English "The young English poet John Keats died in this house on the 24th February 1821 aged 25". Not sure what the shapes are for.
Here is what I found:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=566
The same drawing is also found on his tombstone. It Is apparently the drawing of a lyre missing half its strings.
I should see if his poetry touches me; the bits of info on his short life are intriguing enough.
Oh duh I read your comment too fast and thought you were asking about the writing. Sorry... Nice detective work though. I wonder if a lyre missing half it's strings is something just related to him or his poetry or just poetry in general or just some random thing? Probably not just some random thing.
Thanks! :) I should have guessed as well that an explanation of the drawing was somehow 'findable' on the premises themselves...
My first thought was that the lyre symbolizes poetry in general which was a way to say that it defined him. Why did he choose a lyre though? Is it because he liked Greek poetry which may have been narrated with a music accompaniment. Maybe Keats took Greek poetry as the founding element of all later poetry.
The missing strings, I'd think that's his poetic
being (maybe it's a theme in his poems that I don't know about yet). It feels somehow tragic. A lyre as a symbol of poetry is quite an emotional symbol. Remove some strings and that maims it. The sad part may be that the poetry cannot be transmitted any more; no recovery is possible. It may be in line with him thinking that eventually the memory of everything is bound to be erased. He may be right in the very long term. Yet, he was living in a time where life was 'quenched' very easily, which may have had him think along those lines. But if get it right from your pics he got a book 'Pleasure of Hope'. I don't know how the content fit the title. Maybe he hoped that things would keep going on, even if they have to be reinvented every once in a while.
(and oups, that looks like the never ending comment on my phone).
Oozing with magic and eye candy. What a wouldn't give for a chandelier like that... or a trip to Italy. I hear it's nice...
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