KEAN 



3217 



KEATS 



in the suburbs. There are prosperous wool- 

 combing, weaving and dyeing establishments, 

 as well as government shipbuilding yards. 

 Leather, soap, textiles and iron and steel goods 

 are important manufactures. The timber, flour 

 and hemp fairs of Kazan are among the larg- 

 est in the Russian empire. The* town was 

 destroyed by fire in 1774 during a rebellion, 

 and has since frequently suffered from the same 

 disaster. Population, 1911, 188,100. 



KEAN, keen, the family name of two actors 

 known in their day on the American and Euro- 

 pean stage as the greatest impersonators of 

 Shakespearean characters. Coleridge, the Eng- 

 lish poet, said of Edmund Kean that "seeing 

 him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes 

 of lightning." 



Edmund Kean (1787-1833), the first of the 

 name to achieve fame, was born in London. 

 His childhood was spent in poor surroundings, 

 his mother being a strolling actress named Ann 

 Carey, and his father a stage carpenter. When 

 he was twelve he joined a company of wan- 

 dering players with his mother and for a num- 

 ber of years acted in small cities, assuming 

 every variety of character from pantomime to 

 tragedy. He was married in 1808, and for a 

 number of years experienced such difficulty in 

 securing recognition for talents that his family 

 often went hungry. In 1814 he made his first 

 appearance as Shylock in The Merchant of 

 Venice, at Drury Lane Theater, London, and 

 from that time his fame was assured. He 

 made two tours of the United States and 

 Canada, the first in 1820 and the second in 

 1825. 



Charles John Kean (1811-1868), second son 

 of Edmund Kean, was born at Waterford, Ire- 

 land, and educated at Eton. In October, 1827, 

 he made his first appearance in the character 

 of young Norval in Douglas at Drury Lane 

 with but trifling success. He visited America 

 in 1830 and soon became popular. Later his 

 father played the title role of Othello and 

 Charles appeared with him as lago. He mar- 

 ried Ellen Tree, one of the leading members of 

 her profession, in 1842, and they acted together 

 until his death. His management of the Prin- 

 cess Theater in London was celebrated for the 

 splendid productions of Hamlet, King John, 

 Macbeth, The Tempest and other Shakespear- 

 ean plays. The character of Hamlet was his 

 greatest Shakespearean interpretation. 



KEARNY, kahr'ni, N. J., a residential 

 suburb of Newark, situated in Hudson County, 

 about nine miles west of New York City. It 

 202 



lies opposite Newark, on the Passaic River 

 and on the Erie Railroad and electric inter- 

 urban lines. The population, which was 18,659 

 in 1910, was 23,539 (Federal estimate) in 1916. 

 The area is about seven square miles. 



Many business people of Newark, Jersey 

 City and New York City have suburban homes 

 in Kearny; Arlington is an especially at- 

 tractive residence section. The city has a 

 state soldiers' home, the Sacred Heart Indus- 

 trial School for Boys, a Carnegie Library and 

 an Italian orphan asylum. The industrial 

 plants include large manufactories of linoleum, 

 cotton and linen thread, celluloid, dyestuffs, 

 fertilizers, roofing material, white metal, brass 

 novelties, lamps and buttons. Kearny was first 

 settled in 1765 by Germans; the place was 

 called New Barbados until 1871, when it was 

 incorporated and named in honor of a dis- 

 tinguished citizen, General Philip Kearny, who 

 had won fame in several wars. 



KEATS, JOHN (1795-1821), the last of the 

 English Romantic poets (see ROMANTICISM). 

 In a brief literary career of three years he 

 produced a body of verse that not only places 

 him among the foremost of his country's poets, 

 but gives him a 

 true claim to the 

 title, "the poet's 

 poet." Tenny- 

 son, R o s s e 1 1 i , 

 Swinburne and 

 other verse writ- 

 ers of the Vic- 

 torian Age were 

 profoundly influ- 

 enced by his 

 poetry, which has 

 never been sur- 

 passed in English 

 literature for 



JOHN KEATS 

 Dying in early manhood, 



r.,ir molnrlv nnH he little realized the great 

 pure melody and and imperishable renown that 



lyric beauty, was to be his. One of his last 

 . ,, conscious acts was to dictate 



Keats was the this epitaph for his tomb : 



^nKr r>rm nf thp "Here lies one whose name 

 only one ot e wag writ in water . 



Romantic group 



who lived for poetry alone; he was neither a 

 reformer nor a moralist. Beauty and truth 

 were to him one and the same thing, and the 

 spirit of his best work is strikingly illustrated 

 in the opening lines of Endymion: 

 A thing of beauty is a joy forever ; 

 Its loveliness Increases ; it will never 

 Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep 

 A bower quiet for us ; and a sleep 

 Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet 

 breathing. 



