Book: On he flared

Keats’s poet-autobiography, The Fall of Hyperion, breaks off at the words “on he flared”, about a god who, having seen the fall of brother gods to mortality, knows his doom, yet meets it with fierce resistance. Here are four of Keats’s letters showing the man and the craftsman embracing life’s energies with death on a too-near horizon: on he flared. 

By Susan J. Wolfson

Available from 31st October 2021, available for pre-order now.

This book is published by the Keats-Shelley House and all revenues from sales go towards the museum's Keats-Shelley200 appeal. 

“Susan J. Wolfson is among the most perceptive, witty, and engaging of Keats’s numerous interpreters, and this collection of essays about four letters by Keats is the perfect introduction to his life and times.” Duncan Wu, Raymond Wagner Professor in Literary Studies, Georgetown University

“Sharp, shrewd, and smart – in this volume Susan Wolfson engages brilliantly with John Keats’s greatest letters, attentive to his verbal genius in its finest and most subtle details and inflections. Each of these four remarkable essays carries us with fresh understanding into the heart of Keats’s extraordinary achievement.” Nicholas Roe, Wardlaw Professor of English Literature at the University of St Andrews and author of John Keats: A New Life.