Tuberculosis
Did Keats die of Tuberculosis? Isn't that a contagious disease? I don't understand why everyone wasn't afraid of contracting the disease from him.
shareWhat makes you think people weren't perpetually scared in those days? They didn't even have names for most of the things that killed people, much less any idea of what caused them. Yes, TB is contagious. But if you do a little research you'll discover that most people's bodies fight it off...such as what happened with the entire Brawne family and Charles Brown. Keats' mother, however, and younger brother as well as himself died from it.
"I'd never ask you to trust me. It's the cry of a guilty soul."
Samuel Brawne died from TB a few years later too. I think it can be a slow killer. Keats was already infected with the disease upon returning from his trip to Scotland with Brown before the time the film begins. His immune system was weakened significantly from his travelling great distances on foot, riding outside coaches in stormy weather and sleeping in wet clothes on damp floors. While he had nursed Tom before leaving for this trip in fairly good health, he returned to nurse him at his worst while his own defences were at their lowest.
shareI hadn't heard that about Samuel Brawne, but TB was quite a common cause of early death at that time. It was called "consumption." As for Keats' immune system being compromised by traveling and by cold, there is no correlation between those activities and TB. Poor nutrition and unsanitary living conditions seem to affect infection rates and you can imagine both were quite common in the early 19th century. I had an uncle who died of TB, and it can take an enormously long time to die as the lungs are slowly destroyed, so Keats probably already had the disease when he met Fanny. However, I once again want to stress that if you research the disease you will see that despite the fact that it is very contagious that most people's body's fight it off. My father nursed my uncle, and although Dad tests positive, his doctors assure him that after many years with no symptoms that he will most certainly never contract the disease.
"I'd never ask you to trust me. It's the cry of a guilty soul."
Yeah, I was just going on what I read in Andrew Motion's biography.
shareKeats's other brother, George (who had emigrated to Kentucky in 1818 - at the same time Keats started on his Scotland journey with Brown), also died of consumption in the 1840s - on Christmas Eve, if I remember correctly. Keats's maternal uncle, Midgley Jennings, also died of consumption, as did Fanny Brawne's father, when Fanny was about 10 or 11 (I believe Margaret was just an infant at the time of her father's death).
What's interesting about Samuel Brawne's death is that he was just 24 years old when he died of consumption -- just a year younger than Keats's age at death. Talk about irony!!
Mrs. Brawne died from severe burns when her dress caught fire on a windy November night -- she was apparently seeing guests out the door and into the night with an unprotected candle. This is another tragedy poor Fanny had to endure just about 2 years after the death of her brother (from the same illness that killed the man she so loved). No wonder she wore mourning for as long as she did. She must have been a young woman of remarkable inner strength. . . no wonder Keats loved her so!!