Assignment : Paper no. 5

                  Assignment 

     The Romantic Literature 

Keats's use of myths in his Odes 

Name :- Nirali Makvana 

Sem :- 2 ( 2019 - 20 )

Roll no. :- 14

Subject :- The Romantic Literature 

Topic :- Keats's use of Myths in his Odes

Submitted to  :- Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar university 

Enrollment no  :- 2069108420200023

Email Id:-
niralimakvana9599@gmail.com 

Key points 

🔹️Introduction 

🔹️Brief Information about author 

🔹️Keats's mastery on using myths and the Imagination 

🔹️Various myths in Keats's Odes

🔹️ Conclusion 

🔹️Work Citation 

Introduction  :-

" Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. " 

                        - John  Keats 

The meaning of the line is that the power of imagination is often greater than reality. The purpose is  putting here the line because to show the word, " The Imagination " through which it is easy to identify the age of Romanticism. The Imagination is the main characteristic of the age. During the time period from 1800 to 1850 there was an influence of artistic, literary, musical and Intellectual that originated in Europe at the end of 18th century. The writers of the age influenced by the new style.  They thought that something new was happening in the world's affairs. William Blake's affirmation in 1793 that " a new heaven is begun " was matched a generation later by P. B Shelley's " The world's great age begins anew." Fresh ideals came to the fore; in particular the ideal of freedom long cherished in England. 

" These, these will give the world another heart / And other pulses. "

Wrote John Keats referring to Leigh Hunt and William Wordsworth. Keats used the Imagination in most of his work. Through the use of myths he creates various Odes in which we can clearly see his power of writing and imagination. Now let us see how he used myths in his Odes.

Brief information about author :-

" Beauty is truth, truth beauty,

   That is all ye know on earth,

  And all ye need to know. "

The Odes are Keats's most distinctive poetic achievements. They are essentially lyrical meditation on some object or quality that prompts the poet to confront the conflicting impulses of his inner being and to reflect upon his own longings and their relation to the wider world around him. He was one of the main figures of the Second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and P.B Shelley. Keats is characterised by sensual Imagery, most notably in the series of Odes. Some of the most famous works of Keats are "Ode to Nightingale ","Sleep and Poetry " and the famous sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's homer. "

Keats's mastery on using myths and the imagination :-

John Keats lived a very short life of 25 years, yet in his short time he enriched some of hights  and wrote famous poems. The desire to contrast the ideals of harmony, purity and beauty with the reality of the surrounding world forms the basis of Keats's aesthetics. He was looking for ideas in ancient times. Hellenism, in all of its power, can be seen in his " Ode to a Grecian Urn " and his two large poems, " Endymion ", " Hyperion." Keats believes that beautiful things had to be described in an expressive manner. The laconic style  of Milton also inspired Keats's imitations.  In " Endymion " , developing the myth about the love of the Moon for a poet - Shepherd, Keats demonstrated an unlimited power of imagination and fantasy, interweaving many ancient Greek legends and adding more complicated spiritualistic mood to them. " Hyperion " is Keats another poem based on the mythological plot. Here, he uses the Greek myth of Titan's defeat. Keats was looking for truth and beauty as he considered beauty to be the true essence of any phenomenon. The poetic credo of John Keats was formed within the framework of the aesthetics between two eras 18th and 19th century. 

Various myths in Keats Odes :-

Keats utilizes three mythological techniques most frequently the first might be called mythological sense. The Second is called Physical boundedness. The third one is called his use of embodied figures, initially anonymous mythological forms. Together these three attributes Keats to create a mythology of individual experience, mediating between the individual spirit and divine. For Keats vision is the mythological meaning of the individual soul. In " Ode to Nightingale " Keats put the lines,

That I might drink and leave the world unseen,

But on the viewless wings of poesy

I can not see what flowers are at my feet. " ( lines 19, 33, 41 ) 

Through this Keats enhance the sensuality of his forest space by limiting sight. While he uses smell, taste and touch to describe the world of the poem, again and again he emphasizes a lack of visibility. Keats addresses Nightingale as,

"That thou, Light - winged Dryad of the trees. " ( line 7 )

He uses mythological form. The implicit feminine sexuality of the nymph figure adds a sense of sexual longing to the narrator's desire for transport. The words, " tasting of Flora " implies a very different meaning, with the same sexual undertones as the Dryad. The reference to the " blushful Hippocrene "  spring near the Muses' domicile at Mt. Helicon introduces poetic inspiration into the landscape of sensual associations. These allusions allow the readers to access a pre - existing universe of icons, based on assumed knowledge of mythic forms with which Keats replaces visual description. 

" The Chariot of Bacchus and his pards."

Bacchus adds a visual texture to the darkness, as the image of the wine god surfaces for a moment, but the obliterating power of the narrator's fancy takes precedence over the mythological structure. By replacing Bacchus with a less embodied image he suggests that the concept of fancy transcends the physical longing represented by the mythological figure. Again John Keats put a mythological image of feminine sexuality for the Nightingale 

" Already thee ! Tender is the night,

And haply the Queen- Moon is on her throne, 

Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;"   ( lines 36, 37, 38 )

Both in the particular form of Diana and the broader associations of the Moon as fertility goddess apply to the Nightingale. Keats says of his own location, " here there is no light." For the narrator the realm of classical images is subsumed in a visually limited, dark personal space. In " Ode to a Grecian urn " Keats describes the silence of the urn first and then visual imagery comes later. In this Ode Keats removes the sense of sound. In the first stanza of the poem Keats invokes,

" Tempe or the dales of Arcady. "

to ground the poem in the classical world, and his mention of " mad pursuit," " struggle to escape " forces an association with the pursuit of Syrinx or Daphne. Yet these identifications are questions; the stories at which he hints do not have the concrete meaning of mythological narrative. The most important thing is in the urn's representation is the narrator's concluding stanza on aesthetics removed from the classical tradition. Apollo and Daphne flit about the periphery of Keats's uncertain world. The mute urn is a particularly appropriate example of how the classical stories gain importance through absence and supplanting by modern consciousness. The Urn's  ambiguous landscape depends upon the implicit story for its creation. 

In " Ode to Psyche " Keats uses the imagination to show the speaker's intent to resurrect Psyche and reincarnate himself into Erose. Keats was exposed to a few sources of the Psyche myth. His contemporary sources for the myth included Lempriere's classical Dictionary and Mary Tighe's Psyche in 1805 work that Keats read as a child and returned to in 1818. Psyche is the youngest and most beautiful daughter of a King. She is so beautiful that  Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, is jealous of her. She sends her son, Eros, the god of love to punish Psyche for being so beautiful. One night, Psyche lights a lamp in order to catch a glimpse of her lover, but Eros gets angry with her for breaking his trust and leaves her. After nearly dying from one of the tasks, Eros asks Zeus to transform Psyche into a goddess so the two can be together. Keats must have found the story attractive and the story of the woman so beautiful that love fell in love with her.

Keats sent the poem to his brother on 3 May 1819 with an attached letter saying, 

" The following poem, the last I have written is the first and only one with which I have taken even moderate pains; I have, for the most part, dashed off my lines in a hurry; this one I have done leisurely; I think it reads the more richly for it, and it will I hope encourage me to write other things in even a more peaceable and healthy spirit. " ( Houghton, 2008 )

Conclusion  :-

Thus, on the basis of above all information I conclude that Keats use of mythology is personal and without any extra literary design. Mythology provides him with substance not only for his poetry but also for his philosophy. It leads him to a depend understanding of man and the universe. He retells myths as though they are his own creations. He brings together different mythological stages and presents them as co- existent. In the major odes of Keats the Great goddess appears variously. For example in the " Ode to Psyche." In the " Ode to Nightingale " Keats uses more than one Greek mythology. So, Keats's uses of various myths in his work and his power of the Imagination made him the great poet at that time.

Work Citation :-

Semerenko, L. “Myth and Beauty in the Intertextual Structure of John Keats's Poetry .” Alfred Nobel University Journal of Philology, 1 Mar. 2018, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328024054_Myth_and_beauty_in_the_intertextual_structure_of_John_Keats'_poetry.

Sheley, Erin. “Re - Imagining Olympus: Keats and the Mythology of the Individual Consciousness [1].” Romanticism on the Net, 22 May 2007, https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/ron/2007-n45-ron1728/015826ar/.

HASAN, SEEMIN. 1993, pp. 1–289.