"An ''ignorant and unsettled pretender'' to culture and a ''bantling'' who has ''already learned to lisp sedition''." It was in these terms that the Tory Blackwood''s Magazine reviled Keats''s poetry in 1818. This is not to imply that Keats (1795-1821) was, like Shelley, a political poet. Indeed, he is the ''one great English Romantic poet whose prime belief was in art and beauty''. Love, art, sorrow, the natural world and the nature of the imagination are the preoccupying themes of his poetry. However, as John Barnard shows in this selection, Keats''s poetry is often indirectly critical of conventional political, religious and sexual beliefs. In his Introduction he discusses the focus of the volume, which emphasises Keats''s place as a ''second-generation Romantic''. While Keats sought to embody in his work the ''dreams of art'', he was also aware of the limitations of the claims of poetry and the imagination and remained deeply conscious of human suffering.
Keats comenzó a escribir su Hiperión a finales de septiembre de 1818 cuando tenía 22 años, y lo abandonó definitivamente en abril del año siguiente. La caída de Hiperión no se conoció hasta 1856. El poema intentaba reconstruir libremente el plan de su anterior Hiperion y fue empezado a escribir a mediados de julio de 1819 en Shanlin. En ambos textos se describe como fueron marginados los dioses pre-helenicos, los Titanes, con la llegada de los nuevos dioses olimpicos, encabezados por Jupiter. Al comienzo del mismo se ve a Saturno y a los demas Titanes derrotados, todos menos Hiperion, el Dios del Sol, que intenta animar a sus compañeros y levantar sus decaidos espiritus. Segun Richard Woodhouse: "El poema, de haber sido completado, habria tratado del destronamiento de Hiperion, el anterior Dios del Sol, por Apolo, e incidentalmente de los de Ocenao por Neptuno, de Saturno por Jupiter... y de la guerra de los Gigantes (o Titanes) por restablecer en el mando a Saturno, con otros sucesos sobre los que tenemos muy oscuras indicaciones en los poetas mitologicos de Grecia y Roma. De hecho, los incidentes habrian sido puras creaciones del cerebro del poeta."
This comprehensive eBook presents significant works of this famous and brilliant writer in one ebook - easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate: Poems Letters of to His Family and Friends Endymion Lamia Life of Keats Lamia Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. A Story from Boccaccio The Eve of St. Agnes Ode to a Nightingale Ode on a Grecian Urn Ode to Psyche Fancy ODE [Bards of Passion and of Mirth] Lines on the Mermaid Tavern Robin Hood. To a Friend To Autumn Ode on Melancholy Hyperion. Book Notes on The Eve of St. Agnes Ode on a Grecian Urn,Ode on Melancholy, and To Autumn Notes on Ode to a Nightingale Notes on Ode on a Grecian etc.
In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our literature.
