"He ramped through the
scenes of the romance like a young horse turned into a spring
meadow,"* and all through Keats's poetry we find the love of
beautiful coloring and of gorgeous detail that we also find in
Spenser. It was Spenser that awakened in Keats his sleeping gift
of song, and the first verses which he wrote were in imitation of
the Elizabethan poet.
*Cowden Clarke.
From Spenser Keats learned how poetry might be gemmed, how it
might glow with color. But there was another source from which
he was to learn what pure and severe beauty might mean. This
source was the poetry of Homer. Keats knew nothing of Greek, yet
all his poetry shows the influence of Greece. At school he had
loved the Greek myths and had read them in English. Now among
the books he read with his friend Cowden Clarke was a translation
of Homer. It was not Pope's translation but an earlier one by
Chapman. The two friends began to read it one evening, and so
keen was Keats's delight that at times he shouted aloud in joy;
the morning light put out their candles.
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