Ruth Rosen

Leading prose and poetry performer Ruth Rosen reads some of Keats’s love letters to Fanny and some of the great odes and sonnets written by the literary genius.

Rosen, a graduate of the Royal Shakespeare Company, tells the extraordinary and inspiring story of the young poet through his letters and his poetry. Keats died of tuberculosis at the age of 25 but in the six years before that produced some of the best-loved poetry in the English language including his famous odes and narrative poems such as Isabella, or The Pot of Basil, The Eve of St Agnes, Hyperion, Lamia, and La Belle Dame Sans Merci. He attracted little attention in his lifetime but his work was promoted in the latter half of the 19th century by the likes of Tennyson.

Rosen’s performances of literary works by such as Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Bronte and James Joyce have brought rave reviews and led her to appear at many national and international festivals and theatres. She has given performances with writers such as Harold Pinter, DM Thomas and Michael Holroyd.

“An inspired theatrical performance of great power and beauty . . . in such tones that all sense of time and space is utterly lost. The evening undoubtedly belongs to Rosen.” Time Out