This accessible, informed, and engaging book offers fresh, new avenues into Keats poems and letters, including a valuable introduction to “the responsible poet.� Focusing on Keats sense of responsibility to truth, poetry, and the reader, G. Douglas Atkins, a noted T.S. Eliot critic, writes as an ama-teur. He reads the letters as literary texts, essayistic and dramatic; the Odes in comparison with Eliot treatment of similar subjects; “The Eve of St. Agnes� by adding to his respected earlier article on the poem an addendum outlining a bold new reading; “Lamia� by focusing on its complex and perplexing treatment of philosophy and imagination and revealing how Keats literally represents philosophy as functioning within poetry. Comparing Keats with Eliot, poet-philosopher, this book generates valuable insight into Keats successful and often sophisticated poetic treatment of ideas, accentuating the image of him as “the responsible poet.�