John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome in February 1821, aged 25. His self-composed epitaph at the Protestant Cemetery does what unusual thing?
Keats composed the epitaph shortly before his death; his friend Joseph Severn transcribed it. Keats considered his career destroyed by the hostile reviews his early publications had received, and refused to claim authorship on his grave. Severn added a separate explanatory inscription identifying the grave; the Keats name was only formally added much later, after Victorian reassessment had restored his reputation. The Protestant Cemetery near the Pyramid of Cestius also holds William Shelley (1819) and Percy Shelley (1823) within fifty metres of the Keats grave.
Read the full story →John Keats arrived in Rome in November 1820 in the hope that the Italian climate might arrest his advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. He died at the apartment on the Spanish Steps three months later, aged 25, having written essentially all of his major work in the previous three years. He is buried in the Protestant Cemetery near William Shelley.
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