Keats House Young Poets May workshop

The Keats Foundation

Who are we?

The Keats Foundation is a Registered Charity (No. 1147589) that exists to encourage enjoyment and understanding of Keats’s poems, letters, life and times and to inspire new generations of young poets to fulfill their creative ambitions. Our objectives are to support educational initiatives, at Keats House Hampstead and more widely at festivals, readings, conferences and other Keats-related events.

For our current and forthcoming events and activities please see the News page on this website.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

John Keats – poet of youthful ambition, yearning beauty and joyous mirth – is a global presence, enjoyed by readers around the world and celebrated in Jane Campion’s movie, Bright Star. Keats is the poet of autumn “mists and mellow fruitfulness”, a poet who has inspired genius in other writers, from Thomas Hardy to Ted Hughes to Seamus Heaney – and he is the poet who can spark creativity in new generations of bright stars.

Founded in November 2010, The Keats Foundation is a registered charity (No. 1147589) that exists to encourage enjoyment and understanding of John Keats’s poems, letters, life and times and to inspire new generations of young poets, artists, students and readers of all ages to fulfil their creative ambitions.

Since its establishment, The Keats Foundation has created an outstanding record of inspiring lectures, readings, conferences and sponsorship focussed on Keats House in Hampstead, London, and reaching out across Britain. All Supporters receive a quarterly newsletter, The Keatsian, with news of activities of The Keats Foundation.

The patron of The Keats Foundation is the poet, Sir Andrew Motion, and Supporters include the actor, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Roger Gifford (Lord Mayor of London 2013-14), the actor, Dame Janet Suzman, and the human rights lawyer, Sir Geoffrey Bindman. The Chair of the Board of Trustees of The Keats Foundation is Professor Nicholas Roe, biographer of John Keats.

The Keats Foundation intends to project its education and creative mission in exciting new directions, seeking fresh support and sponsorship through the bicentenaries of John Keats’s life.

The strategy of The Keats Foundation for the period up to 2021 is to:

  1. Consolidate the achievements of The Keats Foundation;
  2. Increase the community of Supporters of The Keats Foundation;
  3. Ensure that The Keats Foundation has a secure financial base from which to promote the life and works of John Keats to the public at large;
  4. Develop The Keats Foundation’s calendar of supported events and activities (which currently include lectures, readings, festivals, conferences, birthday wreath-laying, Eve of St Agnes events);
  5. Enhance The Keats Foundation website incrementally in order to establish a “one-stop shop” for matters relating to John Keats;
  6. Support and encourage the charitable events and activities of Keats House;
  7. Identify new opportunities and events for outreach and encouragement offered by The Keats Foundation;
  8. Establish The Keats Foundation as an important resource, inspiration and encouragement for students working on Keats and English Romanticism.
  9. Unfortunately the Keats Foundation is not currently in a position to award grants for undergraduates or postgraduates.

The following programme of activities and proposals for the period up to 2021 is intended to carry out this strategy.

 

ACTIVITIES AND PROPOSALS

The Keats Foundation has developed a six-year programme of activities and proposals and intends to maintain a six-yearly continuing programme. The programme is subject to regular review and incorporates opportunities as they arise. An outline of the current programme is given below.

  REGULAR EVENTS OTHER ACTIVITIES
2016 St Agnes Eve – 20/01 – Guildhall, 20th January

Westminster Abbey wreath laying (31/10 birthday)

KF Third Bicentenary Conference at Keats House, 20-22 May: “Keats in London; Keats out of Town”

KF Annual Lecture, 26th September, Professor RS White, “Ethereal Finger-Pointings. Associative Memories and Keats’s Shakespearean Quotations”

Develop website

Ideas concerning Keats and politics. Curriculum issues.

28th October 2016. Lecture at Charles Armitage Brown’s house at Plymouth by Professor Nicholas Roe: “John Keats, Charles Brown and Plymouth”

2017 St Agnes Eve – 20/01

Westminster Abbey wreath laying (31/10 birthday)

KF Fourth Bicentenary Conference at Keats House, 19-21 May: “Moments, Meetings, and the Making of a Poet”

KF Annual Lecture,26th September, Dr Jane Darcy, “Primrose Island: Keats and the Isle of Wight”

Develop website

Lectures and discussion on ‘Negative Capability’ by Dr Toni Griffiths and Dr Margot Waddell at Keats House, 17th May

Notable locations, dates and ideas:

Keats’s first book of poems

British Museum

Curriculum issues

Possibility of bust of Keats in the City and commemorative stamp.

John Keats Bicentenary Diary produced by Peter Philips.

2018 St Agnes Eve – 20/01

Westminster Abbey wreath laying (31/10 birthday)

KF Fifth bicentenary Conference at Keats House, 18-20 May:   “Shadows, Magnitudes, Tests and Trials: John Keats in 1818”

KF Annual Lecture to move to February

 

Collaboration with KSMA and the Keats houses re Keats200 anniversary.

…..Notable locations, dates and ideas:

       Teignmouth, Lake District, Scotland

       Fanny Brawne

       Paintings and Keats

Curriculum issues

Possibility of bust of Keats in the City and commemorative stamp.

Publication of ‘Keats’s Places’, ed. R. Marggraf Turley, arising from 2017 KF Conference.

Publication of ‘John Keats and the Medical Imagination’, ed. N. Roe, arising from 2015 KF Conference.

‘Keats at Teignmouth’ lecture by Professor Nicholas Roe at Teignmouth Poetry Festival.

KF Symposium, “John Keats and Romantic Scotland”, St Andrew’s University.

2019 St Agnes Eve – 20/01 – Guildhall, 14th January

Westminster Abbey wreath laying (31/10 birthday)

KF Sixth Bicentenary Conference at Keats House, 17-19 May: “Keats in 1819: Cloudy Trophies, Quiet Power”

KF Annual Lecture, 9th February, Dr Matthew Scott, “How much did Keats really know?”

Collaboration with KSMA and the Keats houses re Keats200 anniversary.

Conference on “Keats and Mythology (1819 – 2019)” hosted by the British School at Rome, 22 – 23 February and organised by the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association in collaboration with the Société d’Études du Romantisme Anglais.

The Great Odes:

Filming and recording of the great Odes (produced by Peter Phillips for The Keats Foundation in co-operation with Keats House).

Ideas concerning Keats and politics. Curriculum issues.

Lecture by Professor Nicholas Roe, Keats House, 6th June: “Keats and the Sea”

Possibility of bust of Keats in the City and commemorative stamp.

Possibility of book arising from the 2019 Conference.

Winchester – Keats200: Keats in Winchester exhibition and essay competitions.

2020 St Agnes Eve – 20/01 – joint KF/KH event

Westminster Abbey wreath laying (31/10 birthday)

KF Seventh Bicentenary Conference at Keats House, 15-17 May.

KF Annual Lecture, 7th March, Professor Alexandra Harris

Collaboration with KSMA and the Keats houses re Keats200 anniversary.

Keats and politics (Peterloo 16.08.1819)

Italy (link with Keats-Shelley house in Rome)

Curriculum issues.

Possibility of bust of Keats in the City and commemorative stamp.

2021

Death of Keats

23 Feb 1821

St Agnes Eve – 20/01

Westminster Abbey wreath laying (31/10 birthday)

KF Eighth Bicentenary Conference at Keats House.

KF Annual Lecture

Collaboration with KSMA and the Keats houses re Keats200 anniversary.

KF Anniversary Lecture by Professor Nicholas Roe (proposal for Guildhall)

KF Anniversary talk and readings at the Athenaeum, London.

Possibility of bust of Keats in the City and commemorative stamp.

The legacy of John Keats.

Beyond

2021

St Agnes Eve – 20/01

Westminster Abbey wreath laying (31/10 birthday)

KF Ninth Bicentenary Conference at Keats House.

KF Annual Lecture

The legacy of John Keats.

How can you help / support?

If you would like to help us on a regular basis to assist the exciting work of the Keats Foundation, you can become one of our Steadfast Supporters for just £25 annually. Being a Steadfast Supporter will bring a 50% discount on entry to Keats House, Hampstead, plus free entry to Keats Foundation events such as our annual lecture and St Agnes Eve celebration. You are also entitled to a big discount on attending our annual John Keats conference, held in May each year.

Find out more.