John, John, John, John,
You should have put your sweater on!

As if that would have saved him…

I haven’t seen the Ricks piece yet, and I probably wouldn’t have read it if you hadn’t mentioned it, since I hated “The Piano,” which is all I know of Jane Campion. I guess classical allusions were de rigeur in Keats’s day, as pop culture allusions were de rigeur for all the bright young literary minds of the late 20th century. I also find some of Keats’s references to antiquity somewhat gratuitous and forced, but I’d rather read “On first looking into Chapman’s homer” or “Ode on a Grecian Urn” than something along the lines of “On first hearing the ‘Simpsons’ theme song” or “Ode on the Golden Arches.” Keats’s letters are indeed great. Now that written correspondence has mostly been reduced to text messages and Twitter tweets, one can only find that winning combination of casual banter and serious thinking in…blog posts and blog comments! (I’m half kidding, of course—but only half!)

Is repelatron a real term or a nick name for that skyway?

Talking about poetry: did you see Christopher Ricks’ piece on Jane Campion’s film “Bright Star” in a recent NYRB? I was delighted to read John Keats’ lines chosen by Ricks, having never realized how clearly and even simply he could express his feelings — I tended to be put off by his allusions to antiquity, though I always loved his letters.