"Anahid Nersessian gathers Keats's six Great Odes and comments on them in essays at once bold, speculative, and personal. There are many lovers in this "lover's discourse," but the main ones are Keats and Nersessian herself. Each ode emerges here as an expression and an inducement of love--sometimes for humanity in general, sometimes for a specific person. This is literary criticism as passion work, close reading as intimacy, with memoir occasionally...

For contemporary critics, Keats's reputation has never been better, and continues to grow. Of particular interest are the five odes Keats wrote in the spring and autumn of 1819 -- "Ode to Psyche", "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on Melancholy", and "To Autumn'. These odes reflect the nature of Keats's world. In this volume, the editor and sixteen other authorities examine the odes to show Keats's Romantic principles, his attempt...