peare's greatest figures, Katharine of Aragon who, in Henry VIII, said: I am about to weep; but thinking that We are a queen, or long have dream'd so, certain The daughter of a king, my drops of tears I'll turn to sparks of fire. The immediate sources of Hyperion are chiefly Hesiod's Theogony, probably read by Keats in the translation by Thomas Cooke (1810), The Works and Days translated by Chapman, Milton's Paradise Lost, and, perhaps, Samson Agonistes. It should be remembered that Milton owed much to Hesiod, and in some degree Keats and Milton drew from the same source. From Ovid, from Ronsard, from Landor's Gebir, and possibly from Southey's long epics which suggest events on a large scale Keats derived some hints. All these combined to furnish inspiration for representing the lofty tone of classical legend, enabled him to create deities, to make them partake of the primitive character of the early powers of nature, earth, sea, sky, and to attribute to them mental processes understandable by men and yet beyond men in intensity and splendor of powerful mood. The symbolism in the poem is rather general, for Keats was trying to express in the terms of Greek antiquity his conception of the organic laws of Being:-the aggression of fresh aspiring youth upon the old and outworn; nature's continual advance from physical might and material strength to "purer forms" dominated by thought and feeling. Keats had seen the struggle of the Greek gods as the eternal conflict between conservatism and advance; between rule by age and priority and rule by youth and energy of spirit; between the accustomed, habitual, and the new, untried. He perceived in the whole drama of loss, change, suffering, the tragedy of each generation of human life, and, with this motif in mind, he succeeded in making majestically real these scenes, placed in the dawn of time. According to Hesiod the history of the early world is a history of successions. Chaos was succeeded by Earth and Heaven, who, in turn, were subordinated to their offspring, the Titans; Saturn, Hyperion, Oceanus, and the others who are listed in Book II of 2 See Mr. de Selincourt's notes in his edition of Keats's Poems, and Sir Sidney Colvin's Life of Keats (1917). Hyperion. Against the Titans warred the Olympians, children of Saturn and Rhea. Hyperion begins at the time when Saturn has been driven into exile by Jove, when Oceanus has been superseded by Neptune, and when Hyperion is threatened with overthrow by the coming of Apollo. The poem, like the typical epic, plunges in medias res, opening with a dramatically effective scene, full of solemnity, intensely suggestive of past tragedy. Keats has with sure, deft strokes portrayed the innermost identity of one god, forcing the spectator to know, by sheer impact of imagination, the solitary grief of Saturn, overthrown and powerless: Upon the sodden ground His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, The impression of divine despair in the picture of Saturn is continued, intensified, contrasted in the portrait of Thea, spouse of Hyperion. Thea represents not overthrow complete but overthrow imminent yet unaccomplished. She keeps, still, the aspect, the stature, the tread, the look of a ruler, but keenly alive in her is a dread, a fear, that makes her presence a revelation of the divine suffering endured by these descendants of Heaven and Earth: But oh! how unlike marble was that face; As if calamity had but begun. And when Thea speaks she has a god's utterance and expression, echoing out of remote oblivion: For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air Book I proceeds in a dialogue between these deities. Saturn's speech in response to Thea is certainly unrivalled for its interpretation of that terrible sense of lost power, lost, when the loser is still able to feel and to think with intensity. Unbelief, astonish ment, confusion, energy appear in this inquiry by one who is asking the question eternally recurring when seemingly infinite strength is overthrown: Who had power To make me desolate? The human race is forever seeking an answer to this query, forever asking for knowledge of the inevitable force beyond, controlling destiny. With the depth of penetration that distinguishes his genius, Keats proceeded to interpret the mood of the being caught in the ebb of power, alienated from himself, yet conscious of still vigorous impulse to act and do. The splendid energy of the mind that can and will originate, that can form new actuality is described by one of the human race who has felt, most comprehendingly, the artist's impulse to expression. Only an adventurous imagination of abounding vitality could conceive the mood that cries out: Another world, another universe, To overbear and crumble this to naught? The scene then changes to introduce Hyperion, the god who was still in possession of his prerogatives. Hyperion, an interpretation of the identification of nature with divinity, is the sun, the fiery splendor that gives light to the world, a natural force of indescribable beneficence and glory.3 Keats endeavored here to give pictorial expression to the various aspects of the sun, clearshining or in clouds, at night, at vaporous dawn, or full mid-day. This deity is the image of power seemingly unsubduable, forever moving on its round. The problem confronting Hyperion is: Do natural forms change? Is organic nature subject to alteration? Do old forms of power suffer eclipse? Do shady visions come to domineer in the sun's realm? The low whisper of ancient Heaven falls with terrible accent upon his ear: Art thou, too, near such doom? vague fear there is: Compare Ovid's account of Phaeton, Metamorphoses, II, and also Dante's Paradiso, Heaven of the Sun, Heaven of Saturn, and later cantos describing light. Yet do thou strive; as thou art capable, Here is the unabated effort of natural force to continue its sway, here is the effort to perpetuate the old and familiar, unchanged, to continue strength in undisturbed authority. Hyperion, however, fearing overthrow through darkness, mist, and "spectres of cold, cold gloom," is totally unaware of the truth that his successor will win through possessing more radiant light and more beneficent, purer beauty than the primitive physical sun possesses. Hyperion arms himself against an enemy that does not exist. The scene changes in Book II, picturing a council of fallen Gods who have been assembled from Hesiod's Theogony, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. There are many points that baffle the student because the poet used great freedom in his selection from different periods of myth. Keats confused traditions but, in general, his Titans are the offspring of Earth (Tellus) and Heaven (Uranus, Coelus). In the group of those opposed to the Olympians are figures that, evidently, Keats meant to represent forces of nature and of primitive life. Just what his interpretation of them was is a problem, but possibly a cautious generalization might find that he included such meanings as these: Time, or Ripening, is represented by Saturn (Chronos); Fertility, by his wife Rhea (Cybele, Ops); the Sun, by Hyperion, with his wife Thea; the moon, by Phoebe with her spouse Coeus; the Powers of the Wind, by Typhon; Thunder and Lightning, by Iapetus and his serpent; Mountain, rising from the sea, by Atlas; Continent, by Asia; Earthquake, by Briareus, Cottus, Gyges; Volcano, by Enceladus; the Sea, by Oceanus, with his wife Tethys and their daughter Clymene; also, by Creus, Phorcus (wild forces of sea) whose offspring, the Gorgons, had the power of freezing aen at a glance; Fire, by Porphyrion. Other conceptions, of an abstract sort, are Memory (Mnemosyne); Justice (Themis); Grief (Dolor). These Titans, in mood of revolt and dire dismay, arrogantly demanding safe continuance of power, are addressed by that personified force in nature which most completely represents the law of ceaseless movement. Oceanus, knowing the mood of his fellows, their stiffness of intelligence, offers them a theory of life that is in The dreary accord with the philosophical doctrines of evolution. sorrow of Saturn, the fierce resentment and assertiveness of Hyperion are shown to be futile and childish in relation to that change ordained in the very constitution of the universe. The truth unknown by the revengeful, egotistical gods is enunciated by Oceanus in one of the most memorable monologues in English literature. He protests against that selfish despotism which would cling to its prerogatives and deny the significance of change. He presents a series of truths, of powerful import: We fall by course of Nature's law, not force Of thunder, or of Jove. This is a recognition of the law of change as inevitable in the universe, a recognition that must underlie any sane, courageous philosophy of life. The doctrine of perpetual flux, of incessant mutation, is an old one, but ever new and painful to the individual who desires the security of the familiar and accustomed, who desires to keep his world as it is. Next must come the thinking being's intelligent acceptance of this fate, in a spirit of self-command: ... for to bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm, Men must meet life unflinchingly, not blinking at unpleasant facts nor paltering with half truths, but seeing existence adequately, living with poise and calm. Not mere apathetic endurance of what must come but intellectual keenness and clearness of vision is the criterion of power. This attitude towards life is based upon the faith that change is growth and advance. Keats, in the hour when the doctrine of evolution was becoming a dominant idea, perceived the significance of eternal progress; the hope and incentive of man: So on our heels a fresh perfection tr ids, • Cf. Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy, Chap. IX. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnets, 15, 60, 64, 65. |