Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 17371

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
[Marginalia in Keats's annotated copy of "Paradise Lost" in Book 1, lines 318-21]: Keats underlines the line 'To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?' and writes: 'There is a cool pleasure in the very sound of vale. The english word is of the happiest chance. Milton has put vales in heaven and hell with the very utter affection and yearning of a great Poet. It is a sort of delphic Abstraction - a beautiful thing made more beautiful by being reflected and put in a Mist. The next mention of Vale is one of the most pathetic in the whole range of Poetry. "Others, more mild, / Retreated in a silent Valley etc". How much of the charm is in the Valley!'
Century: 1800-1849
Date: unknown
Country: unknown
Time: n/a
Place: n/a
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:John Keats
Age Unknown
Gender Male
Date of Birth 31 Oct 1795
Socio-economic group: n/a
Occupation: poet
Religion: atheist
Country of origin: England
Country of experience: unknown
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: John Milton
Title: Paradise Lost
Genre: Poetry
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: owned

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 17371  
Source - Print  
  Author: John Keats
  Editor: John Barnard
  Title: John Keats: The Complete Poems
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1988
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 518-9
  Additional comments: The marginalia is transcribed in Appendix 4 of this edition.

Citation: John Keats, John Barnard (ed.), John Keats: The Complete Poems (London, 1988), p. 518-9, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=17371, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)