Joseph Severn - Journey To Italy With John Keats, 1820–1821

Journey To Italy With John Keats, 1820–1821

On 17 September 1820, Severn set sail onboard the Maria Crowther from England to Italy with the famous English poet John Keats. Keats and Severn had known one another in England, but they were only passing acquaintances. Yet it was Severn who agreed to accompany the poet to Rome when all others could, or would, not. The trip was intended to cure Keats's lingering illness, which he suspected was tuberculosis; however, his friends and several doctors disagreed and urged him to spend some time in a warm climate. After a harrowing voyage, they arrived in the Bay of Naples on 21 October, only to be placed in quarantine for ten days. The two men remained in Naples for a week before heading off to Rome in a small carriage, where they arrived mid-November 1820 and met Keats's physician, Dr. James Clark. In Rome they lived in an apartment at number 26 Piazza di Spagna, just at the bottom right of the Spanish Steps and overlooking Bernini's famous Barcaccia fountain.

Severn had left England against his father's wishes and with little money. In fact, his father was so incensed by his departure that, as Severn reported in a late memoir, "in his insane rage he struck me a blow which fell me to the ground." He was never to see his father again. While in Rome during the winter of 1820-21, Severn wrote numerous letters about Keats to their mutual friends in England, in particular William Haslam and Charles Armitage Brown, who then shared them with other members of the Keats circle, including the poet's fiancée, Fanny Brawne. These journal-letters now represent the only surviving account of the poet's final months and as a consequence are used as the primary historical source for biographers of Keats's last days.

Severn nursed Keats until his death on 23 February 1821, three months after they had arrived in Rome. As he reported to John Taylor two weeks afterwards, "Each day he would look up in the doctors face to discover how long he should live -- he would say -- "how long will this posthumous life of mine last"—that look was more than we could ever bear—the extreme brightness of his eyes—with his poor pallid face—were not earthly --" Severn's ordeal was recognized by Keats himself, who, a month before his death, said, "Severn I can see under your quiet look -- immense twisting and contending -- you dont know what you are reading -- you are induring for me more than I'd have you -- O! that my last hour was come --" He was later thanked for his devotion by the poet Percy B. Shelley in the preface to his elegy, Adonais, which was written for Keats in 1821. It was also at this time that Severn met, among other notables, the sculptors John Gibson and Antonio Canova, and Lord Byron's friend, the adventurer Edward John Trelawny. Severn made a sketch of Trelawny in 1838.