telling irony, as in Vergil's lines on the fatal impatience of Orpheus to see his bride : : Cum subita incautum dementia cepit amantem Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere Manes. (Georgics, iv. 488, 489.) In classical literature the "turn" found most favour with Ovid, in whom it degenerated into a mere prettiness, and the early Elizabethans caught it principally from Ovid, though Spenser developed to the full its most delicate musical possibilities. But in English poetry Milton has the most constant recourse to it; in his work it is found in all its forms, from the vulgar Ovidian pun, which fortunately Keats escaped, to its finest and highest use. The most sustained example of its musical development is to be found in the speech of Eve (Paradise Lost, iv. 641-58), "Sweet is the breath of morn," etc., where an exquisite effect is obtained by the reiteration of the delights of earth which in Eve's eyes were associated with her love for Adam. Other illustrations, of varying force, are the following: There rest, if any rest can harbour there (Paradise Lost, i. 185). and feel by turns the bitter change of fierce extreams, extreams by change more fierce (ii. 598.) faithful found Among the faithless, faithful only hee (v. 897). unchang'd To hoarce or mute, though fall'n on evil dayes, On evil dayes though fall'n, and evil tongues (vii. 24-26). Even Wordsworth in the Excursion fell under the influence of Milton's style in this respect, and Keats, often with singular success, makes use of the same poetic device. (1) (2) How beautiful, if sorrow had not made Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self (i. 35, 36). Unseen before by Gods or wondering men, Darken'd the place; and neighing steeds were heard, Possess'd for glory, two fair argent wings (i. 283, 284). (3) (4) (5) There is a roaring in the bleak-grown pines Such noise is like the roar of bleak-grown pines (ii. 116, 122) (6) Now comes the pain of truth, to whom 'tis pain (ii. 202). it enforc'd me to bid sad farewell (7) (8) To all my empire: farewell sad I took (ii. 238, 239). (the brook that) Doth fear to meet the sea: but sea it met (ii. 302). I question whether Milton himself uses this device on an average once in every hundred lines, as Keats does. The "turn" can in many of these cases be clearly distinguished from the mere repetition of phrase (as 2, 3, 5, 7 and 8) but the dividing line between them is a vanishing one, so that it seems better to group them together, as having all the same musical effect upon the poem. Miltonic inversions. This simple device is, of course, employed by all poets to aid them in overcoming the difficulties of metre and rhyme, but the excessive use of it is peculiarly associated with Milton and is one of the most obvious examples of the Latinism of his style. Keats, who used it sparingly elsewhere, employs it nearly fifty times in Hyperion, e.g.; palace bright (i. 176); metal sick (189); rest divine (192); stride colossal (195); radiance faint (304); children dear (309); palpitations sweet, and pleasures soft (313); etc., etc. And the effect is especially Miltonic when one adjective precedes the noun and another follows it; e.g. gold clouds metropolitan (i. 129); lithe serpent vast (i. 261); cf. Paradise Lost, iv. 870, faded splendour wan, etc. Miltonic vocabulary. Under this heading may fairly be placed words which, not in Keats's ordinary prose vocabulary, are to be found in both Milton and Hyperion. Many of them are common to other writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (cf. Glossary) but their presence in Hyperion is probably due to Keats's engrossing study of Milton at this period. Most noticeable among these are the following (further explanation, when necessary, will be added in the notes) argent (i. 284); colure (i. 274); essence (i. 232, ii. 331, iii. 104); gurge (ii. 28); inlet (i. 211); lucent (i. 239); oozy (ii. 170); orbed (i. 166); reluctant (i. 61); slope (i. 204). Notice also the spelling of sovran (iii. 115) and astonied (ii. 165). It is noticeable also that in Hyperion for the first time Keats's vocabulary abounds in adjectives formed from substantives by the addition of -ed instead of -y. This is a formation used largely by Milton, and from this time onward by Keats also. Miltonic reminiscence or intonation. Under this head must be classed lines and phrases which recall to the ear some well-known Miltonic cadence or combination of words. They cannot be regarded as direct borrowings, but they are indicative of the profound influence which Milton exercised in this poem over Keats's style and thought. Came like an inspiration (ii. 109); cf. Paradise Lost, i. 711, rose like an Exhalation. Dark, dark And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes (iii. 87), cf. Samson Agonistes, 80, O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon. (The conjunction of the two epithets "painful vile" has also a Miltonic sound.) No shape distinguishable (ii. 79); cf. The other shape If shape it might be call'd that shape had none Distinguishable (Paradise Lost, ii. 667). The meek ethereal Hours (i. 216); cf. th' ethereal Powers (Paradise Lost, xii. 577). Soft delicious warmth (ii. 266); cf. soft delicious Air (Paradise Lost, ii. 400); soft Ethereal warmth (Paradise Lost, ii. 601). Breath of morn (Hyp. i. 2); (Paradise Lost, iv. 641). Repetition of "this": Am I to leave this haven of my rest, This cradle of my glory, this soft clime (i. 235, 236). Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime? . . . (Paradise Lost, i. 242). In thousand hugest phantasies (ii. 13) cf. a thousand phantasies (Comus, 205). (The uncommon superlative "hugest" is also Miltonic.) Locks not oozy (ii. 170); his oozy locks (Lycidas). Some comfort yet (i. 21); cf. som solace yet (Comus, 348). More striking passages of the same kind (e.g. ii. 54, ii. 75, ii. 36) are reserved for treatment in the notes. It was largely due to this excessive Miltonism that Keats abandoned the poem (vide letters quoted, p. li) and set about its reconstruction in the form of a vision, but his friends seem to have been enthusiastic in its praise and to have recognised its supreme poetic worth, Hunt, reviewing the 1820 volume in the Indicator, spoke of it as "a fragment—a gigantic one, like a ruin in the desert, or the bones of the mastodon. It is truly a piece with its subject, which is the downfall of the elder gods." The only dispassionate contemporary review of which we have knowledge is that of Jeffrey in the Edinburgh of August 1820. It is chiefly devoted to a criticism of Endymion, which Jeffrey had not noticed before, and only speaks, at the close, of Hyperion as "containing passages of some force and grandeur" but, he adds, "it is sufficiently obvious that the subject is too far removed from all sources of human interest to be successfully treated by any modern author. Mr. Keats has unquestionably a very beautiful imagination, and a great familiarity with the finest diction of English poetry; but he must learn not to misuse or misapply these advantages; and neither to waste the good gifts of nature and study on intractable themes, nor to luxuriate too recklessly on such as are more suitable." (For a reply to this criticism, vide EML, p. 153.) Byron was furious at this praise of the Edinburgh and makes several offensive references to it in his correspondence (Sept.-Dec. 1820), e.g. "of the praises of that dirty little blackguard Keates in the Edinburgh, I shall observe as Johnson did when Sheridan the actor got a pension; 'what, has he got a pension? then it is time I should give up mine!' Nobody could be prouder of the praises of the Edinburgh than I was, or more alive to its censure. .. At present all the men they have ever praised are degraded by their insane article. Why don't they review 'Solomon's Guide to Health'? It is better sense and as much poetry as Johnny Keates.' (Letters and Journals, ed. Prothero, v. 120.) But in spite of this he recognised the genius of Hyperion. In Don Juan. (xi. 60) he attempted to compromise matters, and to sneer and praise at the same time. . . . "John Keats, who was killed off by one critique Just as he really promised something great If not intelligible, without Greek Much as they might have been supposed to speak. Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate; "Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, Should let itself be snuffed out by an article." In a letter to Murray (Aug. 1821, Prothero, v. 331) he admitted that "his Hyperion is a fine monument and will keep his name" and a few months later wrote in a manuscript note to his earlier attack on Keats (vide note to Sleep and Poetry, 230), "His fragment on Hyperion seems actually inspired by the Titans and is as sublime as Eschylus". Shelley, whom neither vanity nor jealousy ever touched, always recognised the greatness of the poem, which was to him the finest of all Keats's work. “If Hyperion be not grand poetry, none has been produced by our contemporaries," he writes to Peacock (15th Feb., 1821) whilst in his unpublished letter to the Quarterly Review he remarks: "The great proportion of this piece is surely in the very highest style of poetry". Medwin states that Shelley "considered the scenery and drawing of Saturn dethroned and the fallen Titans, surpassed those of Satan and his rebellious angels in Paradise Lost-possessing more human interest, and that the whole poem was supported throughout with a colossal grandeur equal to the subject" (Dowden, Life of Shelley, ii. 109). For the importance of Hyperion in the development of Keats's mind and thought, cf. General Introduction, and Introduction to the Fall of Hyperion. Until quite recently the only MS. of Hyperion known to be extant was that to be found in the Woodhouse Commonplace Book, into which it was copied by one of Woodhouse's clerks. But in October last (1904) the British Museum purchased from Miss Bird, sister of Dr. George Bird the physician and friend of Leigh Hunt, the autograph MS. of the poem. It is clear that when Keats started upon this MS. he intended it to be a fair copy, and it was only discarded because of the numerous alterations which he made when he came to view his work a second time, and the act of writing rekindled in him with even greater intensity the inspiration in which the poem had first been composed. For a full account of the MS. and its cancelled passages readers are referred to my Introduction and Notes to the Facsimile of the Autograph MS. of Hyperion, published by the Clarendon Press; all the more important readings in it are quoted in the following notes. It was from this MS. that the transcript in the Woodhouse Commonplace Book was taken. BOOK I 1. For the relation of the picture of the dejected Saturn with which the poem opens to Chapman's translation of Iliad, viii. 425, vide General Introduction, p. xlvi. 3. Eve's one star: evening MS. cancelled, the substitution of a vivid picture for mere statement. 8. Not so much life as on a summer's day Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass. This passage affords us one of the most interesting examples of gradual development to perfection. Originally it ran : Not so much life as what an eagle's wing Would spread upon a field of green-ear'd corn. "what an eagle's" was then deleted in favour of "a young vulture's" -hardly an improvement-and so the passage was left. Then at a later time, when Keats came to read through what he had written, the two lines were crossed through and their place taken by the following, written across the right-hand side of the page : Not so much life as on a summer's day Robs not at all the dandelion's fleece. This was left unaltered in the MS., and reappears in Woodhouse. But Keats was dissatisfied with it, and the felicitous reading of the text was added on the proof-sheets.1 16. Stray'd stay'd MS., Woodhouse. 17-19. The MS. first read :— And slept without a motion: since that time His old right hand lay nerveless on the ground and reached its present form through several changes. Thus "on the ground" was first cancelled for "dead supine," and "white-browed" gave place to "ancient" before the inspiration came which prompted the most vital word in the whole passage—" realmless”. 18. nerveless, listless, dead :—A collocation of adjectives whose cadence Keats had caught from his favourite, Chatterton-cf. Excellent Ballad of Charitie, 23, withered, sapless, dead. 38. lost, dispended, drowned. Keats makes use of it in two other places-Endymion iv. 764, lovelorn, silent, wan. St. Agnes' Eve, ii., meagre, barefoot, wan. 21. Between lines 21 and 22 the MS. and Woodhouse supply four cancelled lines: Thus the old Eagle drowsy with great grief, Sat moulting his weak plumage, never more In reality the change made its first appearance in The Fall of Hyperion, written in November, 1819. Critics are always ready to point out the general inferiority of the reconstructed poem; they do not realise that four of the most felicitous changes from the Hyperion of the Woodhouse Commonplace Book to the printed text of 1820 are anticipated in The Fall of Hyperion. Besides this passage we may note the substitution of "gradual" for "sudden" in line 76 and the changes in lines 189 and 200. |