Nersessian, Anahid: Keat's Odes: A Lover's Discourse

Chicago, hardcover Publication Date: February 10, 2021 Publisher Marketing: n 1819, the poet John Keats wrote six poems that would become known as the Great Odes. Some of them--"Ode to a Nightingale," "To Autumn"--are among the most celebrated poems in the English language. Anahid Nersessian here collects and elucidates each of the odes and offers a meditative, personal essay in response to each, revealing why these poems still have so much to say to us, especially in a time of ongoing political crisis. Her Keats is an unflinching antagonist of modern life--of capitalism, of the British Empire, of the destruction of the planet--as well as a passionate idealist for whom every poem is a love poem.The book emerges from Nersessian's lifelong attachment to Keats's poetry; but more, it "is a love story: between me and Keats, and not just Keats." Drawing on experiences from her own life, Nersessian celebrates Keats even as she grieves him and counts her own losses--and Nersessian, like Keats,