Bright Star, Green Light, Jonathan Bate
Bright Star, Green Light, Jonathan Bate
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
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Bright Star, Green Light
The Beautiful Works and Damned Lives of John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald

Author: Jonathan Bate

Narrator: Paul Hilliar

Unabridged: 11 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/31/2021

Synopsis

An immensely pleasurable biography of two interwoven, tragic figures: John Keats and F. Scott FitzgeraldIn this radiant dual biography, Jonathan Bate explores the fascinating parallel lives of John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald, writers who worked separately—on different continents, a century apart, in distinct genres—but whose lives uncannily echoed.Not only was Fitzgerald profoundly influenced by Keats, titling Tender is the Night and other works from the poet’s lines, but the two shared similar fates: both died young, loved to drink, were plagued by tuberculosis, were haunted by their first love, and wrote into a new decade of release, experimentation, and decadence. Both were outsiders and Romantics, longing for the past as they sped blazingly into the future.Using Plutarch’s ancient model of “parallel lives,” Jonathan Bate recasts the inspired lives of two of the greatest and best‑known Romantic writers. Commemorating both the bicentenary of Keats’ death and the centenary of the Roaring Twenties, this is a moving exploration of literary influence.

About Jonathan Bate

Jonathan Bate is a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University, where he was formerly Provost of Worcester College, and Foundation Professor of Environmental Humanities at Arizona State University. He is well known as a biographer, critic, creative writer, and broadcaster, and has authored award-winning biographies of John Clare and Ted Hughes, as well as many works on Shakespeare. He has a CBE for services to higher education and was knighted for services to literary scholarship.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Ali on March 18, 2021

A brave concept to borrow Plutarch’s model of parallel lives and use it to compare and contrast Keats and Scott Fitzgerald. It mostly works but the best bits by far are the close readings of ‘Gatsby’, ‘Tender is the Night’, some of the Odes, ‘Eve of St Agnes’ and ‘Isabella’. Bate knows he is pushing......more

Goodreads review by Alice on December 19, 2022

a book made in a lab to appeal specifically to my interests I think......more

Goodreads review by Stuart on February 21, 2022

To begin with, I will say I will definitely read this book as it looks fascinating. This review is purely concerning the audiobook version. The narrator appears to think he is on the stage rather than reading the book aloud. It is ham acting at its worst. So bad was it - and I love both Fitzgerald a......more

Goodreads review by Sadie-Rae on April 22, 2022

I really enjoyed reading this book. As someone who is a huge fan of both Keats and FSF I was shocked to not know how influenced FSF was by Keats! I found this book really interesting, with some opinions that has made me go back and read poems/stories. Jonathan Bate has done a great job! I gave 3 sta......more

Goodreads review by JAMES on August 26, 2022

There is much to enjoy in this double biography with a few caveats. I didn't know much about Keats's life, so enjoyed that narrative very much. I found the technical discussion of his poetry - the Negative Capability bits - difficult to comprehend, but kept with it and think I see what the Author wa......more

Quotes

“An excellent introduction to each writer…[that] illuminates both.” New Statesman (London)

“Keats was Fitzgerald’s guiding star…An energetic and highly engaging game of literary ping-pong across the ages…What an immensely charismatic pair they are.” The Times (London)

“Bate…zeroes in on the work: his feeling for it, by being so exacting, is infectious, especially in the case of Keats…The principal achievement of this pairing is to remind us of the way that literature connects us.” The Guardian (London)

“Counterpointing the two men’s writing lives and ambitions, as Bate does here, throws fresh light on both men.” John Barnard, University of Leeds

“With a fine-tuned ear for poetic language, a master-biographer’s eye for the revealing detail, and an astonishing mental filing system, Jonathan Bate has written a wonderfully illuminating and moving book.” Robert Watson, University of California, Los Angeles

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