John Keats

Swarnambika S

Essay on John Keats

October 24 , 2007

Essay on John Keats

Endymion is one of Keat 's early adventures in poetry . The poem reflects Keats ' attitude to beauty . Endymion is a youth renowned for his beauty and his perpetual sleep . As he slept in Mount Latmus in Caria , his beauty warmed the cold hearts of Seleue (the Moon ) who came down to him kissed him and lay by his side . His eternal sleep on Latmus is assigned to different causes but it is generally believed that Seleue had sent

br him to sleep that she might be able to kiss him . Keats has certainly made use of the myth of Endymion to explore his own way to realize the truth that is beauty (Hewlett , 1949 . But the myth remains only the framework . Keats invents quite a lot . Aileen Ward (1963 ) in this connection says

the legend of Endymion 's winning immortal youth through the love of the Moon - Goddess was only the beginning or rather the ending he had to fill up his four books with living characters , set them moving in a world of their own and breathe new meaning into the old legend

And this meaning he does , indicate at the beginning of the poem

A thing of beauty is a joy of ever

Its loveliness increases : it will never

Pass into nothing but still will keep

A bower quite for us , and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams , and health and quite breathing

The theme of the poem is love , beauty and youth . He starts this marvelous adventure laden with exotic scenery , in mid April and locates it aptly in the Isle of Wight

. So I 'll begin

Now while I cannot hear the cities ' dire

Now while the early hudders are just new

And run in mazes of the youngest hew

About old forests while the willow trails

Its delicate ambrer and the dairy pails

Bring home increase of milk

There are certainly inspired pieces in the first book as Hymn of Pan It begins after a of the Festival of the God , which held on a lawn in a forest on a slope of Mount Latmus . The whole assembly is addressed by the old priest who tells the worshippers of the bounties which Pan has heaped upon them . The imagery is well chosen to explain the manifestation of God 's energy . All the objects are described in happy phrases . The God is associated with the objects of nature , every aspect which imagination , hunting for the objectively mysterious , can comprehend . The Hymn ends in the lines in which Pan is

. The unimaginable lodge

For solitary thinkings such as dodge

Conception to the very Bourne of Heaven

Then leave the naked brain

The style of Endymion is largely that of I Stood Tip-Toe ' and Sleep and Poetry ' This is luscious , half-feminine and often beautiful (Roe 1997 . There is a distinct growth , of course , in craftsmanship but the most important point about Keats at...