He was born 31 October 1795. His father died young leaving his wife with four children. Keats's mother died of tuberculosis when he was barely 14, the same illness that later killed Keats himself. Keats attended school at Enfield, where he made friends with the school-master's son, Charles Cowden Clarke. It was Clarke who first introduced Keats to literature and encouraged him to write poetry. Keats studied to be an apothecary but in 1816 he decided to give up medicine to devote himself entirely to poetry. His first volume of poetry was published in March 1817. At the same time he began to suffer from persistent sore throats. September 1818 marked the beginning of the so called 'Great Year'. The Eve of St. Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn were all written during this period. He became increasingly ill. It was believed that the Italian climate could save him, and that the change would do his spirits good too. He went to Rome In 1820. But sadly, he did not write a single line of poetry during his time there. He died in February 1821. More than that of any of the other romantics, Keat’s poetry is a response to sensuous impressions. He found neither the time nor the inclination to elaborate a complete moral or social philosophy in his poetry. In such poems as „The Eve of St. Agnes“, „Ode on a Grecian Urn“, and „Ode to a Nightingale“, he showed an unrivaled awareness of immediate sensation and an uneduqualed ability to reproduce it. His work had a more profund influence than that of any other romantic in widening the sensuous realm of poetry for the Victorians later in the century. He was one of the most important figures of early nighteen century Romanticism, a movement that espoused the sanctity of emotion of imagination and privileged the beauty of the natural world. Keats doesn’t believe that poets should use their works to help reform the world as Shelley, he prefered to emphasize the poet’s responsibility to make his works as beautiful as possible by ‚loading every rift with ore. Keats is represented as the Romantic poet who has the greatest success in balancing the demands of poetic identity and personal identity. The most famous statement Keats makes regarding the poet’s identity is that the poet has no character at all. As such, the poet is always vulnerable to having identity, to ‚get outside the prison of his body‘.