An English Poet in Scotland :

Travelling is at the core of the romantic experience of life, as it implies a form of reaching out in quest of experience, which will then be, to quote famous words, “recollected in tranquillity”. The romantic poets travelled considerably, both physically and mentally, and I will try to address the two forms of journey in this paper, since I believe that imaginary excursions colour our view of new territory, and shape our prejudices. John Keats was a wellread traveller, who had been impressed by Robert Burns‟s poetry; largely from these poems, he formed an image of Scotland before going there. Keats‟s way of travelling was rather unorthodox: he was not unlike our modern hikers who, armed with a backpack and the Rough Guide, try to discover a foreign country with as little money as possible. He considered his walking tour in the North as a decisive step in his life, even before setting out. 1 We discover his feelings thanks to the journal-letters he wrote to his brother every day, which makes for immediacy, but also thanks to the letters he sent his friends, on a less regular basis. The comparison between the two forms of writing is often significant. This medium itself is decisive in helping Keats come to terms with his experiences in Scotland, and later in making it possible for him to compose poems connected with these experiences. I will begin by analysing Keats‟s reactions when confronted with the foreignness of Scotland, and try to show how his letters can both overcome geographical distance and provide some primary form of self-expression, necessary as an outlet for Keats at this stage. He never fails to underline the humorous side of his journey, and the humorous distance thus created seems to me to be a first step towards aesthetic distance. However, the sense of foreignness should not hide the fact that Keats could relate to some aspects of Scotland, namely, the aesthetic and literary dimensions. Although the reality of Scotland sometimes shocked him because it was so different from both his familiar experiences and his expectations, his pleasure in the Scottish landscape and his admiration of Burns provided a sense of belonging to the same tradition, of sharing a common culture. Yet this very sense of