The credentials of the learned author of the book, under review, are impeccable and highly impressive. He did his M.A. English, M.A. in Urdu, M. Phil and Ph.D. from the University of the Punjab and taught English language and literature at Government College (now University) Sargodha and the University of the Punjab, Lahore.
In addition to his academic pursuits he took part in activities that were aimed at the betterment of the handicapped, especially the blind. He has served as President, Pakistan Association of the blind, Sargodha, Chairman, Thinkers' Forum for Social Uplift, Lahore, and District Editor of the monthly White Cane.
In the days gone by blindness was considered a curse, an affliction and a disability.
Regarded as a social outcast, uneducable, hopeless and helpless, a bind individual was condemned to a life of privation, misery and disgrace. But nature has always been compassionate. Such superstitions, proved to be no obstacle to the emergence of great sages like Homer and Kalidas, who excelled beyond millions of their sighted contemporaries in wisdom, intelligence and creative ingenuity. Professor Iqbal Sheikh is yet another example of the munificence of nature.
In the brief introduction of the book, Professor Sheikh has written about his interest in the English poet, John Keats, and how his interest increased with the passage of time. It was after the completion of his studies, for a master's degree in English, that he finally decided to give expression to his fondness for the great poet. Himself a poet of considerable merit, Professor Iqbal Sheikh has authored five books namely, Sahil-e-Tishna Lubb, Sawalia Nishan; Ek Hamsafar Achha Laga; Tilawat-e-Dil and Love's No Crime.
John Keats (1795-1821) was born in London. His father was a livery-stable keeper. He did not spend his early years close to nature, as did most other poets, but in the city of London. Yet in some marvellous manner, there was born in him, an intense love of beauty. "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever" is the first line of his 'Endymion'. In the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn', which seems to have been inspired by the ancient Greek's worship of beauty, he declares:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all
"Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know".
"Here lies one whose name was writ in water." This is the epitaph John Keats prepared for himself. He thought of it in the dark days when he felt death drawing near and despaired of winning fame. His whole poetical career had lasted only seven years. During this brief period he had written some of the greatest poems in the English language. They were filled with lines of haunting beauty that will live as long as the language is spoken.
Unlike his contemporaries, Shelley and Wordsworth, Keats had no desire to reform the world or to teach a lesson. He was content if, by his magic power, he could make his readers see and hear and feel with their own senses the marvellous forms, colours and sounds that his imagination brought forth.
In 1818, his first long poem, 'Endymion', appeared. In addition to a number of sonnets, his chief poems were: 'Lines on the Mermaid Tavern'; 'Isabella, or The Pot of Basil'; 'I stood Tiptoe upon a Little Hill'; 'The Eve of St. Agnes'; 'La Belle Dame sans Merei'; 'Ode to a Nightingale'; 'Ode to Autumn'; 'Lamia'; 'Hyperion'; and a number of sonnets. Divided into eight chapters, Professor Sheikh's Urdu book, under review, focuses on different aspects of Keats's poetic personality and his achievements during a very short span of life. He died at the age of 26. Quoting from a number of his poems, Professor Sheikh seems to have succeeded in helping the readers to understand the basic thrust of Keats' poetry, which is love of beauty.
Although the book production value is not good, it makes very interesting reading especially for those fully acquainted with the works of John Keats.