THE GREATEST
LOVE STORY
NEVER TOLD
He was the Heath Ledger of his day. She was a flirty, fashion-fixated teen.
Jane Campion, director of new literary biopic Bright Star, talks
to Stylist about the ill-fated love story of John Keats and Fanny Brawne
eath. Where would a cracking
literary romance be without it?
Romeo and Juliet, Heathcliff and
D
Catherine, Gatsby and Daisy... all
cruelly aborted courtships that
inspired generations of angst-ridden teens and
hopeless romantics. But whereas the tortured
prose of Shakespeare, Fitzgerald and Brontë
was spawned from pure imagination, the
poetry of John Keats came straight from the
heart. His frowned-upon real-life love affair
with next-door-neighbour, Fanny Brawne,
inspired his greatest poems, yet it is the true
story behind their young relationship that is
the genuine literary romance: short-lived,
taboo and ultimately tragic.
For a man who died young (25), unknown and
penniless 188 years ago, John Keats hasn’t done
too badly in the posthumous fame stakes. For
years, his poems have been recognised as some
of the most sensual words ever committed to
paper. But until now, nobody bothered much
about the young lady who inspired them. This
week Jane Campion’s new film Bright Star hits
cinema screens, and chronicles the final three
years of the poet’s life and the love affair between
the two young people who Campion describes as
the “Twilight couple of the 19th century."
Fanny Brawne (played by Abbie Cornish) is
arguably the real centrepiece of Bright Star. A
fashion-obsessed 18-year-old, Brawne subscribes
to fashion magazines like Le Voleur (think Vogue
with etchings of ladies in painful-looking
corsets) and is a proud owner of “the first gown
in Woolwich with a triple-pleated collar”.
“I fell in love with Fanny as much as Keats,”
says Campion. “She was a clever, witty woman,
but her interest in fashion did make people think
she was shallow.” One of the only ways Brawne
could express herself was via her needlework.
“That’s all women did back then,” adds
Campion. “Sew, and wait for things to happen.”
And something did happen – one day in
1818, when Keats spied Brawne pottering
around her Hampstead garden. He regarded
the coquettish teenager as “a minx”, while she
fell underneath the aphrodisiac-like spell of
his poetry and cool looks.
“There are parallels between Keats and
people like rock stars and Heath Ledger,”
notes Campion. “He was a cultural rebel,
shocking morals of the day. Fanny met
He saw her as “a
minx” while she fell
under the spell of his
poetry and cool looks
somebody who she never imagined she’d fall in
love with, because he was so unsuitable.”
Unsuitable because, back in the 1810s, when
everybody spent lots of time bowing and holding
teacups, Keats represented an antidote to fusty
convention which Brawne found irresistible.
“This is why I think she fell in love with him
and the reasons why I would fall in love with
him – he’s funny, he’s honest, he says what
WRITER/DIRECTOR
JANE CAMPION ON THE
SET OF BRIGHT STAR
he thinks, he teased her mercilessly. I think
that’s incredibly attractive.”
And so they fell in love – although in Bright
Star, physical affection is limited to a few kisses
and polite hand-holding through daffodil fields.
So did they break cultural taboos and sleep
together? “What do I know?” exclaims Campion.
“There’s no evidence their relationship was
anything other than chaste. But there was
no lack of intensity in that love affair.”
And no lack of angst, either. When Keats
holidayed on the Isle of Wight, Brawne stayed in
bed for five days. After he wrote to her: “I almost
wish we were butterflies…”, she filled her
bedroom with all manner of weird-looking moths.
And she was clearly no stranger to the dramatic
gesture – her younger sister once ran into the
kitchen announcing: “Fanny wants a knife to kill
herself!” In fact, Keats and Brawne’s relationship
could easily take place in the bedrooms and bus
stops of suburban Britain today. “Girls who are 17
now do exactly the same thing. Trying on dozens
of outfits, etc. We take our emotions a lot more
seriously when we’re younger,” says Campion.
“I used my daughter, Alice [she’s 15], as
inspiration. She’s got the right temperament.
She’s very dramatic. She lives every moment
intensely, as does Fanny. One moment she’s
a depressive, the next she’s happy. It’s the
whole hormone surge of being a teenager. What
I love about my daughter and, I guess, Fanny,
is whatever they’re doing, they’re totally in that
moment. They totally believe that they’re in love.”
Soon after the pair became engaged in
October 1819, Keats contracted tuberculosis –
the same disease that killed his brother and
mother. Keats’ supporters clubbed together to
send him to Italy to convalesce, but there was
only enough money for one ticket, meaning
Brawne had to stay behind.
“He proposed to her before he got really
sick. He tried to keep away – all I could imagine
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