lyric and Keats's poem. "The union of the imaginative and the real," Hunt remarks, "is very striking throughout, particularly in the dream. The wild gentleness of the rest of the thoughts and of the music are alike old; and they are alike young, for love and imagination are always young, let them bring with them what times and accompaniments they may. If we take real flesh and blood with us, we may throw ourselves, on the facile wings of our fancy, into what age we please." William M. Rossetti says: "This is a poem of impression. The impression is immediate, final, and permanent; and words would be more than wasted in pointing out to the reader that such and such are the details which have conduced to impress him." There is perhaps no other poem in modern literature which in so brief a space so completely and strongly produces an impression of penetrating weirdness. It is not to be called one of the three or four greatest poems of Keats, and yet in what it attempts there is hardly one of the poet's works which is more successful. 55. On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. Written in 1816. Charles Cowden Clarke and Keats had sat up together all night reading Chapman, Keats shouting with delight' at passages which particularly delighted him. They parted at daybreak, and at ten o'clock this sonnet was sent to Clarke. It has always deservedly been among the best loved of Keats's poems. W. M. Rossetti, Life of Keats, says: "Keats's first volume would present nothing worthy of permanent memory, were it not for his after achievements, and for the single sonnet upon Chapman's Homer." Of course Cortez is an error for Balboa, but the reader is too completely carried away by the image to be troubled by this. Leigh Hunt says of the last line : “We leave the reader standing upon it, with all the illimitable world of thought and feeling before him, to which his imagination will have been brought, while journeying through these 'realms of gold.'” 55 8. Chapman, George; 1559 (?)—1634. Poet and dramatist, friend of Jonson, Fletcher, and other poets of the time. Best known for translation of Homer, of which the first part was issued in 1598, the work being concluded in 1609. His version remains the most virile and genuinely poetic translation in the language, despite its numerous rivals. 56. Dedication. While the first volume of poems was being printed, [1817], writes C. C. Clarke, (Recollections), "on the evening when the last proof-sheet was brought from the printer, it was accompanied by the information that if a dedication to the book was intended it must be sent forthwith.' Whereupon he [Keats] withdrew to a side table, and in the buzz of a mixed conversation (for there were several friends in the room) he composed Dedication Sonnet." 56. Written on the Day, etc. Feb. 3, 1815. A few days after Hunt's release Keats went to visit him. On his return he met C. C. Clarke, and turned to walk with him. When they parted, "he . . . gave me," says Clarke, "the sonnet . . . This I feel to be the first proof I had ever received of his having committed himself to verse; and how clearly do I recollect the conscious look and hesitation with which he offered it! There are some momentary glances by beloved friends that fade only with life." १९ 57. Sonnets iv and v. These sonnets seem to me to be almost utterly without literary value, but it has been suggested that they should be included from their personal interest. Hunt spoke of the former as an example of Keats's sense of the proper variety of versification without a due consideration of its principles. . By no contrivance of any sort can we prevent this from jumping out of the heroic measure into mere rhythmicality." This comment is equally true of the second, which, according to Clarke, was written on the occasion of Keats's first meeting with Hunt at the cottage in the Vale of Health, Hampstead. 58. To G. A. W. Miss Georgina Augusta Wylie, afterward wife of Keats's brother George. 58. Solitude. Keats's first published poem. 59. Haydon, Benjamin Robert, historical painter, 1786-1846. The men referred to in the first six lines are Wordsworth and Hunt; in the seventh, Haydon himself, who was overrated alike by himself and by his friends in a way which it is now difficult to understand. 60. On the Grasshopper, etc. Written at Hunt's cottage in friendly competition with Hunt, whose sonnet was as follows: "Green little vaulter in the sunny grass Catching your heart up at the feel of June, One to the fields, the other to the hearth, Both have your sunshine; both though small are strong At your clear hearts; and both were sent on earth To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song,— In doors and out, summer and winter, mirth." 61. On the Floure and the Lefe. The octet of this sonnet is unhappily inferior to the sestet. It should perhaps be added that Chaucer's authorship of The Floure and the Lefe is now discredited. 61. On the Sea. Keats wrote from the Isle of Wight in April, 1817, that he had been sleepless, and haunted by the line in King Lear : "Do you not hear the sea?" He added immediately this sonnet, which had evidently been written under this influence. "The Spell of Hecate," i.e., the moon withdrawing the tide. 62. On Homer. This fine sonnet is dated 1818, but Dante Gabriel Rossetti held it to be earlier than the splendid sonnet on Chapman's Homer. Rossetti is quoted by Mr. Forman as saying that he not only thought "There is a budding morrow in midnight" Keats's finest single line, but one of the finest "in all poetry." The estimate was perhaps rather an enthusiastic expression of admiration than a serious literal criticism. Giant ignorance in the first line doubtless refers to Keats's ignorance of Greek. 63. When I have fears. This sonnet was written in 1818, after the completion of Endymion. The feeling which it expresses is pathetic and profoundly human, and Palgrave speaks of it as a fine sonnet." Personally I have never been able to reconcile myself to the conclusion, which seems to me inadequate. 63. Bright Star. Lord Houghton writes that after Keats had set out on his last dreary voyage for Italy, and the vessel had for a fortnight been beating about the Channel, he landed for a day on the Dorsetshire coast. "The bright beauty of the day and the scene revived the poet's drooping heart, and the inspiration remained with him for some time even after his return to the ship. It was then that he composed that sonnet of solemn tenderness. I know of nothing written after wards." 65. Endymion was begun in April, 1817, probably at Carisbrooke, and finished in first draft on the 28th of November following. The preface, which, whatever may be thought of it now, was certainly an unfortunate one at the time of its publication, is the second which Keats wrote. The first was objected to by his friends as too unconciliatory, and this is perhaps equally unsatisfactory from its too deprecatory tone. "I have not the slightest feeling of humility toward the public," he wrote in reply to a remonstrance against the defiant tone of the first preface," or to anything in existence but the Eternal Being, the principle pf Beauty, and the memory of great men. . . . A preface is written to the publica thing I cannot help looking upon as an enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of hostility. . . I never wrote one single line of poetry with the least shadow of public thought." This is youthful, and only remotely consistent with the frequently expressed desire of Keats to win undying fame; but it was undoubtedly sincere at the moment, and it throws a strong light upon the poet's wilful and intensely emotional character. For a brief and striking criticism of the poem there is perhaps nothing better than what Shelley wrote: "Much praise is due to me for having read it, the author's intention appearing to be that no person should possibly get to the end of it. Yet it is full of some of the highest and the finest gleams of poetry; indeed, everything seems to be viewed by the mind of the poet which is described in it. I think if he had printed about fifty pages of fragments from it I should have been led to admire Keats as a poet more than I ought, of which there is now no danger." William Michael Rossetti is also worth quoting here: "In snatches alluring, in entirety disheartening. .. Affectations, conceits, and puerilities abound, both in thought and in diction; however willing to be pleased, the reader is often disconcerted and provoked. The number of clever things said cleverly, of rich things said richly, and of fine things finely, is, however, abundant and superabundant; and no one who peruses Endymion with the true sense of poetic endowment and handling can fail to see that it is peculiarly the work of a poet." With the legends which relate the love of Diana for a shepherd, the story of the poem has little in common beyond the central idea. Keats employed only the framework of the Grecian story, and hardly that. Upon this framework he erected a romantic and essentially unclassic poem. Looked at coldly, Endymion is a work in which a young writer struggled with difficulties which he had not yet strength to conquer. Its narrative is confused and its course uncertain. Its intention has not the directness and continuity without which a poem cannot be ranked among the successes of literature. Examined with sympathy and appreciation it is found to be set thick with beauties which are imperishable because they are full of imagination, while even its faults are of the sort which are attractive because they spring from a temper nobly poetic however untrained, vitally imaginative though undeveloped and unformed. 67 1. I have not troubled the reader with the very numerous instances which have been preserved of the revisions, almost invariably improvements, to which Keats subjected his work. It may be c interest, however, to note that the familiar line which opens Endym a line which has become almost hackneyed by continual quotation, was originally in the form, "A thing of beauty is a constant joy." The verse revised is not at Keats's high-water mark, but it is most characteristic of his attitude toward life and is in itself pleasing. 71 144. The reference is to the nine years' servitude to King Admetus which was Apollo's punishment for killing the Cyclops who forged the bolt with which Æsculapius was killed. 71 150. Begirt with minist'ring looks. Surrounded by people whose looks showed their eagerness to do their ministering part." -FORMAN. 72 158. swan. Leda's love. Jove won the love of Leda in the form of a 73 208. The famous article in the Quarterly Review accused Keats of "spawning" uncouth words, and cited "needments" among others. The word was taken by the young poet from the Faerie Queene. 74 243. Syrinx escaped the importunities of Pan by being transformed into a reed. The myth is alluded to in I Stood Tip-toe upon a Little Hill. 77 334. The raft branch. Raft, meaning broken, was probably also borrowed from Spenser. In 1. 335 a pause after branch apparently did duty to the poet's ear for the missing syllable, or rather the three long syllables with which the verse opens were considered equivalent to two short and two long. There is no difficulty in so reading the passage. 79 405. See the Arabian Nights' Entertainment. 79 411. There are nine unrhyming lines in Endymion, all of which probably resulted from changes made during the revision of the poem, where a passage carrying the rhyming word was struck out and another substituted which was in complete couplets. 82 499. Delphic emphasis. With something of the impassioned frenzy of the Delphic priestess inspired by the god. 82 510. A Paphian dove. A dove sent by Venus from Paphos, both bird and place being sacred to her. 83 555. Ditamy. This word is retained because Keats chose it, although where he found authority for substituting it for dittany is undiscovered. 85 614. Gordianed up. Made into a Gordian knot. 86 643. Apparently: 'where the north wind blows so strongly as to balance or overcome the rush of the meteor.' The comparison is forced and awkward. |