Last modified on Mon 22 Feb 2021 11.55 EST
Almost 200 years ago, on 23 February 1821, the English poet John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome at the age of 25. “I shall soon be laid in the quiet grave – thank God for the quiet grave,” he told his friend Joseph Severn, in whose arms he died. “I can feel the cold earth upon me – the daisies growing over me – O for this quiet – it will be my first.”
Keats gave instructions for his headstone to be engraved with the words “here lies one whose name was writ in water”, and visitors to Rome’s Protestant cemetery can still make a pilgrimage to see it today. But far from being “writ in water”, Keats’s words continue to echo, with a host of writing and events lined up to mark the 200th anniversary of his death.
Poet John Keats is being brought virtually back to life 200 years after he died - including his voice, face and clothing - by a team of scientists.
Keats died on February 23, 1821 and to mark the 200th anniversary of his death experts from the Institute for Digital Archaeology have virtually recreated him .
Linguists, curators and physicists worked together to give the poet an extra 24 hours of life - a comment on the fact his tombstone says he died a day later than he did.
The poet was 25-years-old when he died of tuberculosis in Rome - where he had gone in the hope the Mediterranean sun would ease his condition.