In a 1979 essay , Jerome McGann argued that while the poem was indirectly influenced by historical events , Keats had deliberately ignored the political landscape of 1819 . Countering this view , Andrew Bennett , Nicholas Roe and others focused on what they believed were political allusions actually present in the poem , Roe arguing for a direct connection to the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 . Later , Paul Fry argued against McGann 's stance when he pointed out , " It scarcely seems pertinent to say that ' To Autumn ' is therefore an evasion of social violence when it is so clearly an encounter with death itself ... it is not a politically encoded escape from history reflecting the coerced betrayal ... of its author 's radicalism . McGann thinks to rescue Keats from the imputation of political naïveté by saying that he was a radical browbeaten into quietism "
Peterloo Massacre
Peterloo Massacre
To Autumn