Bright Star (Movie Review‪)‬

Bright Star. Written and directed by Jane Campion. Starring Ben Wishaw and Abbie Cornish. Apparition, 2009. During her lifetime, Fanny Brawne's identity as Keats's great love remained a secret to all but her family and a few friends. Those who knew about their relationship were not very kindly disposed toward her. Jane Reynolds maligned her to Mrs. Dilke and spoke of the "most unhappy connexion" with Keats. John Hamilton Reynolds referred to her as a "poor idle Thing of woman-kind." Joseph Severn initially thought her "a cold and conventional mistress." And George Keats informed his sister that she was "an artful bad hearted Girl." (1) Her reputation did not benefit from the publication of Sir Charles Dilke's Papers of a Critic (1875), in which Dilke quoted a single sentence from a letter she had sent to Charles Brown in 1829 and from this evidence deduced her callous disregard for Keats's poetry and fame. (2) The greatest blow to her character, however, came three years later with H. B. Forman's publication of Keats's love letters (1878). The book caused a scandal in the Victorian press, and the lovers and editor were exposed to a barrage of criticism. The likes of Arnold, Swinburne and William Michael Rossetti lined up to attack Keats, calling him a vulgar surgeon's apprentice, a howling and sniveling boy, a wayward and mentally unbalanced rhymester. In turn, Fanny Brawne was vilified by the review establishment as cruel, shallow and unfaithful, a heartless flirt unworthy of a great poet.