1. John Keats • Born on October 31, 1795, in London • The oldest of four children, he lost both his parents at a young age. • When Keats was fifteen, he apprenticed with an apothecary-surgeon and studied medicine in a London hospital • He never practiced his profession, deciding instead to write poetry.

2. In 1818, Keats met and fell in love with a woman named Fanny Brawne. • In 1819 Keats contracted tuberculosis, and by the following February he felt that death was already upon him, referring to the present as his "posthumous existence.” • During his illness he continued a correspondence with Fanny Brawne and—when he could no longer bear to write to her directly—her mother, but his failing health and his literary ambitions prevented their getting married. • Keats went to Rome late in his life, and he died there on February 23, 1821, at the age of twenty-five.

5. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” In groups, look at Stanzas 2, 3, 4 and 5. For each Stanza, draw the scene that is described in the poem. Then answer the following questions: • Stanza 2 - How does the statement in the first 2 lines set up the message in the rest of the stanza? What is the speaker communicating? • Stanza 3 - Answer question #4. • Stanza 4 - Answer question #5. • When you have finished with these questions, all groups should explain the final 2 lines of the poem.