Summary of Andrew Klavan's The Truth and Beauty

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 Benjamin Robert Haydon, a self-important little man, was a good friend, a terrific dinner party companion, and a brilliant conversationalist. But he was also a painter who failed to live up to his vocation. His work was quite marvelous in its badness.

#2 Keats was a short, handsome, decent man who, despite being a poet, failed to live up to his vocation.

#3 Wordsworth was a great poet, but he was also a bit of a pompous ass.

#4 Wordsworth was a great poet, but he was also a pompous ass. Keats was a great poet, but he was also a nervous wreck.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Oct 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798350039481

IRB Media

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Insights on Andrew Klavan's The Truth and Beauty

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In 1817, Benjamin Robert Haydon had four friends to his rooms for dinner. He was a self-important little man who wanted to be the greatest historical painter in English history. But he was not. His work was quite marvelous in its badness.

#2

Keats had always admired Wordsworth, and when he met him that November, he was excited to be in the same company as such a great poet. He wrote a sonnet about him and the excitement and promise of the era.

#3

Wordsworth was a great poet, but he was also intimidating. He was good at being Wordsworth, and he knew how to live into his own magnificence. He was a conservative now, but he had been a radical in his youth.

#4

Keats’s first long poem, Endymion, was about the Greek god of poetry, Apollo. It began with the famous lines A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, and its loveliness increased with time. But Wordsworth was not impressed.

#5

Charles Lamb was a man of sorrows and a drunk. He had tried to make a go of writing poetry, fiction, and plays, but had finally achieved success with a children’s book he cowrote with his sister Mary.

#6

Charles and Mary’s marriage was a difficult one. They would go to different asylums every time Mary’s mind began to crumble. Charles was a gentle and lovable man, but he was also a drunk and a man of sorrows.

#7

The guests arrived around