Keats and Hellenism
An Essay

This book proposes a fresh and original interpretation of Keats' use of classical mythology in his verse.

Martin Aske (Author)

9780521604192, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 27 January 2005

208 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.2 cm, 0.27 kg

This book proposes a fresh and original interpretation of Keats' use of classical mythology in his verse. Dr Aske argues that classical antiquity appears to Keats as a supreme fiction, authoritative yet disconcerting, and his poems represent hard endeavours to come to terms with the influence of that fiction. The major poems (most notably Endymion, Hyperion, the Ode on a Grecian Urn and Lamia) form a stage, as it were, upon which is played out a psychic drama between the modern poet and his classical muse. The study is especially bold in its assimilation of historical scholarship and literary theory to a close reading of the texts. Individual poems are discussed in the context of late Enlightenment and Romantic attitudes towards antiquity and in the light of recent critical theory, in particular the theory of literary history and influence formulated by Harold Bloom and Geoffrey Hartman. Keats emerges as a significant example of the way in which a poet tries to establish a distinct identity under the burden of history and of literary tradition.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Notes on the text
Introduction
1. Fictions old and new
2. Towards Endymion
3. Flowers of speech
4. The fall of Hyperion
5. Silent forms
6. Lamia
or, antiquity decomposed
Notes
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]