See also The Round Table, 1817—“On Posthumous Fame—whether Shakespeare was influenced by a love of it.”
JOHN KEATS, c. 1818
(1795-1821)
The genius of Shakespeare was an innate universality—wherefore he had the utmost achievement of human intellect prostrate beneath his indolent and kingly gaze. He could do easily Man’s utmost. His plans of tasks to come were not of this world—if what he purposed to do hereafter would not in his own Idea “answer the aim,” how tremendous must have been his Conception of Ultimates!
Note on Troilus and Cressida, I. iii. Marginalia from the Shakespeare Folio of 1808. (Works, ed. H. Buxton Forman. 1901, iii. p. 254.)
c. 1818
“Sonnet on sitting down to read King Lear once again.”
O golden-tongued Romance, with serene lute!
Fair-plumed Syren, Queen of far-away!
Leave melodising on this wintry day,