The Stakes, of the non-Vampire-hunting Variety

“Is Criticism a true thing?” Keats asks in a marginal note in regards to Dr. Johnson’s comments on As You Like It. Over the course of months, as I became more obsessed with John Keats, his life and his poetry, I have tried to find him in my own life and writing. I’ve certainly found him in my reading, but he’s also appeared on the internet. Over a hundred years after his death, Keats’ presence is still all around us, from photos of his museum home, where you can tour the places he slept and wrote, to the YouTube phenomenon, where someone calling themselves HeavilyBreathingCat can recite “On Sitting Down to Read ‘King Lear’ Once Again” with a video of his cat lounging on a chair.