Keats the reader

Beginning with how Keats reads some odd words in Milton and Shakespeare, this essay moves on to how he figures himself as a reader. Keats reads Wordsworth against the grain of his syntax and deep into the grain of his word; he reads Milton to generate his own modern Miltonic tropes, rereads King Lear to address a crisis in poetic development, reads himself into Dante's Hell on the current of eros, and into the existential of the unfinished Fall of Hyperion. This essay also discusses several drawings and paintings of Keats reading (Severn severally, Tom Keats, Marianne Hunt, and imitations of Severn)-a characteristic "Keats," whether engaged or interrupted for reflection. Keats reading relays into our reading Keats.