During October of 1820, John Keats was forced to quarantine on the coast of Naples, Italy. Keats left London in a last ditch effort to try to cure his consumption, now known as tuberculosis. However, at the time the cholera pandemic, which lasted from 1817-1824, had spread to London, England around the time Keats and his friend Joseph Severn had left for Italy. Naples, already dealing with a typhus outbreak, did not want another disease to ransack them so they forced the boat Keats was on to quarantine. During this time John Keats was miserable. While only ten days as opposed to forty days, where the word quarantine comes from, Keats longed to, “once more feel myself a citizen of this world.” This horrible feeling stems from his consumption, his separation from Fanny (his lover), and being stuck at sea in a boat full of more people than it ought to in a harbour full of more ships than it ought to.

During his long hours in quarantine, John Keats became annoyed with a fellow female consumptive, read Byron, made puns, and made sense of his timeline by writing a brief history about himself. He talks about his unfortunate life and childhood as seemingly everyone around him died, he suffered with poverty, bullies, and instability. He also supposedly revised Bright Star which was a poem written for Fanny.

Because of quarantine, Keats became more sick as his tuberculosis continued to worsen. Because of his ill state, Keats wasn’t able to keep up with writing. Only four months after quarantine, John Keats died because of his tuberculosis. His early death is rather unfortunate because he never got to see his works become more popular in the literary world. His fame only grew after his death and he was soon to be recognized as one of the greatest Romantic poets for his famous vivid imagery and sensuous appeal.

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/travel/coronavirus-essay-mayes-keats.html

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/column-poet-john-keats-met-early-end

https://keatslettersproject.com/correspondence/keatss-quarantine-bubble/

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/letter-quarantine

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Keats/The-year-1819