John Keats was born to a likeable young man, Thomas Keats, who was described as being energetic and intelligent, and to a flirtatious, young girl who was said to be dangerous if left alone with, Frances Jennings, in October 31, 1795. There is some uncertainty about the exact birth of this young couple’s first son because the date of birth was initially introduced on the day of his baptism, which was the following December. After the young couple married in October 1794 at St. George’s in Hanover with disapproving reasons by Frances’ family, they could not do otherwise perhaps because of John’s expectancy.For reasons unknown, Keats respected October 31, 1795 as the date being his birthday. There are three brothers that followed him: George in February 1797, Thomas in November 1799, and Edward in April 1801 then, finally, a sister, Frances Mary in June 1803. According to George, John, was a complete “mamma’s boy,” who also resembled her in appearance and temperament. Early in his life, John Keats seems to have been a boy of intense feelings and creative with vivid imagination, deeply devoted to his mother.
Though the family atmosphere was one of warmth and freedom, in which the brothers grew together forming an unbreakable bond, at their first experience of loss, when the youngest boy, Edward, died in infancy, drew the bond even tighter. After John Jennings daughter married, he retired from his prosperous livery establishment, Swan and Hoop, leaving it to his affluent son-in-law, Thomas Keats. It was here that John Keats experienced his first glimpse of the world, which must have sunk deep into his memory. It was this same livery farm where John experienced his father’s accidental death and his mother’s quick remarriage. Less than a year later, John, whom began to find the comfort of a father in his grandfather, died in March 1805.
The old man left quiet a bit of money and land to his family, which was supposed to be split between them, but his sister, Frances Rawlings had other plans, by taking it all and disappearing. Although all initial plans for refinement in education where terminated, John found a second home with his grandmother, Mrs. Jennings. The fact was that John had to mothers during his boyhood – one young, beautiful, and unreliable, the other older, equable, and affectionate. Yet, this division of parental instability appeared later in John Keats’ life, when he had the tendency to acquire two very different types of women in his private life. As a growing lad, John was impulsive, boastful, and somewhat self-centered. But it was as a fighter that he made his name, when he rushed to save his younger frail brother by a teacher’s hand. Even though his younger brother matured well like his father, and begun to win the many battles fought between the two, it was he who remained John’s closest companion of his boyhood.
Yet, John’s life began to grow darker during several years. In 1807 his uncle Midgley, who he worshipped, was stricken with consumption and died the following year. And at the reappearance of his mother, now an ill and adverse woman must have had a disturbing effect on a boy who knew the opposite of her. She, too, began to show signs of consumption and in 1810 resumed her death of an illness gone unchecked. The painful experience of his childhood took a special form.
