{"id":60,"date":"2008-10-06T12:22:48","date_gmt":"2008-10-06T12:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/?p=60"},"modified":"2014-08-16T18:26:48","modified_gmt":"2014-08-16T18:26:48","slug":"keats-at-teignmouth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/?p=60","title":{"rendered":"Keats at Teignmouth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

‘Keats House’ in Northumberland Place may or may not be where John Keats lodged with the Jeffrey family during the two months that he spent in Teignmouth, caring for his ailing brother. Houses in the area have been renumbered many times since then, and in the early nineteenth-century the street was known as the Strand. From Keats\u2019 letters it would seem that he stayed at a corner property with a view of the river, newly built on land reclaimed from a marsh. It sounds as if it would have been an uncomfortable place to spend the winter, even for a healthy person, and unlikely to enjoy the \u2018very beneficial climate\u2019 described in contemporary guidebooks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Keats certainly gives the impression that the trip was something of a disappointment. He set off from London on 4 March, 1818, and the spring that year seems to have been a particularly wet one. Descriptions of the gloomy weather crop up repeatedly in letters to his friends:<\/p>\n

March 13, to Benjamin Bailey –<\/em><\/strong>
\n– by the by you may say what you will of Devonshire: the truth is, it is a splashy, rainy, misty snowy, foggy, haily floody, muddy, slipshod county \u2013 the hills are very beautiful, when you get a sight of \u2018em \u2013 the Primroses are out, but then you are in \u2013 the Cliffs are of a fine deep Colour, but then the Clouds are continually vieing with them \u2013<\/em><\/p>\n

March 14, to J. H. Reynolds –<\/em><\/strong>
\n– Being agog to see some Devonshire, I would have taken a walk the first day, but the rain would not let me; and the second, but the rain would not let me; and the third: but the rain forbade it \u2013 Ditto 4, ditto 5 \u2013 So I made up my Mind to stop in doors, and catch a sight flying between the showers; and behold I saw a pretty valley \u2013 pretty cliffs, pretty Brooks, pretty Meadows, pretty trees, both standing as they are created and blown down as they are uncreated \u2013 The green is beautiful as they say, and pity it is that it is amphibious \u2013 mais! but alas! the flowers here wait as naturally for the rain twice a day as the Muscles do for the Tide –<\/em><\/p>\n

April 9, to J. H. Reynolds –<\/em><\/strong>
\n– Devonshire continues rainy. As the drops beat against the window, they give me the same sensation as a quart of cold water offered to revive a half drowned devil \u2013 No feel of the clouds dropping fatness; but as if the roots of the Earth were rotten cold and drench\u2019d \u2013 I have not been able to go to Kents\u2019 Cave at Babbicun \u2013 however on one very beautiful day I had a fine clamber over the rocks all along as far as that place: I shall be in Town in about Ten days \u2013 We go by way of Bath on purpose to call on Bailey \u2013 <\/em><\/p>\n

27 April, to J. H. Reynolds<\/em> –<\/strong>
\nWe are here still enveloppd in clouds \u2013 I lay awake last night \u2013 listening to the Rain with a sense of being drown\u2019d and rotted like a grain of wheat \u2013 There is a continual courtesy between the Heavens and the Earth<\/em>. \u2013 the heavens rain down their unwelcomeness and the Earth sends it up again to be returned to morrow.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Queen Street and the River Teign photographed from Northumberland Place in March 2010.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0 *\u00a0 *\u00a0 *\u00a0 *<\/p>\n

A search of the web, along with a study of Keats’ published letters and poems, suggests that a list of his Teignmouth writings would include the following:<\/p>\n

Letters to various correspondents dated between 13 March and 3 May 1818.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Endymion<\/em>, revisions to Book IV plus two versions of the Preface \u2013 in the original edition the second version is dated \u2018Teignmouth, 10 April 1818\u2032.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018The Human Seasons\u2019 \u2013 in a letter to Benjamin Bailey, 13\/03\/1818.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018At Teignmouth\u2019, and \u2018Where be ye going you Devon maid\u2019 \u2013 both included in a letter to Benjamin Haydon, 21\/03\/1818.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Over the hill and over the dale\u2019 (also known as \u2018Dawlish Fair\u2019) \u2013 letter to James Rice, 24\/03\/1818.<\/strong><\/a> (See below for a more complete version of this poem.)<\/p>\n

\u2018Epistle to John Hamilton Reynolds\u2019 \u2013 25\/03\/1818.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Isabella\u2019, stanzas 12, 13 and 30 \u2013 letter to J. H. Reynolds, 27\/04\/1818.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!\u2019 \u2013 letter to J. H. Reynolds, 03\/05\/1818.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

DAWLISH FAIR<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the hill and over the dale,
\nAnd over the bourn to Dawlish–
\nWhere gingerbread wives have a scanty sale
\nAnd gingerbread nuts are smallish.<\/p>\n

Rantipole Betty she ran down a hill
\nAnd kicked up her petticoats fairly
\nSays I I’ll be Jack if you will be Gill–
\nSo she sat on the grass debonairly.<\/p>\n

Here’s somebody coming, here’s somebody coming!
\nSays I ’tis the wind at a parley;
\nSo without any fuss any hawing and humming
\nShe lay on the grass debonairly.<\/p>\n

Here’s somebody here and here’s somebody there!
\nSays I hold your tongue you young Gipsey;
\nSo she held her tongue and lay plump and fair
\nAnd dead as a venus tipsy.<\/p>\n

O who wouldn’t hie to Dawlish fair,
\nO who wouldn’t stop in a Meadow,
\nO who would not rumple the daisies there
\nAnd make the wild fern for a bed do!<\/p>\n

*\u00a0 *\u00a0 *\u00a0 *\u00a0 *<\/p>\n

MORE LINKS AND FURTHER READING<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rise of the Devon Seaside Resorts, 1750-1900<\/strong>, by John Travis, is available to read online at Google books<\/a> and provides a useful insight into the over-optimistic promises held out to encourage invalids and their families to spend the winter at the coast.<\/p>\n

According to the Thomas Luny House<\/strong> website, Andrew Motion used to bring his family to the town for holidays<\/a>, so is presumably well-placed to comment on its advantages and drawbacks – his biography of Keats offers an excellent account of the Teignmouth episode.<\/p>\n

Ideas of landscape in John Keats’ Teignmouth poems:<\/strong><\/a> an article by Clayton G. Mackenzie. Note – If Keats did visit Shaldon, as suggested by the author of this piece, he would have travelled by ferry. The first bridge wasn’t constructed until 1827.<\/p>\n

Text and photos \u00a9 Angela Williams, 2010, 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did John Keats lodge here in 1818 ?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[131,133,4,94,31,132,29,134],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-devon-2","tag-andrew-motion","tag-benjamin-bailey","tag-devon","tag-j-h-reynolds","tag-john-keats","tag-john-travis","tag-teignmouth","tag-tom-keats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":46,"href":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1989,"href":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/1989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.literaryplaces.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}