Endymion A Poetic Romance

Endymion is a poem by John Keats first published in 1818. It begins with the line "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever". Endymion is written in rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter (also known as heroic couplets). Keats based the poem on the Greek myth of Endymion, the shepherd beloved by the moon goddess Selene. The poem elaborates on the original story and renames Selene "Cynthia" (an alternative name for Artemis).

Endymion is a poem by John Keats first published in 1818 by Taylor and Hessey of Fleet Street in London. It begins with the line "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever". Endymion is written in rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter.

Keats. The name is synonymous with great romantic poetry and great romantic poets. A short life but a legacy of works that few, if any, can rival. John Keats was born October 31st, 1795, in London, England, the eldest of four childrenKeats was 8 when his father, trampled by a horse, died. His mother remarried but lost much of the family's assets. When that marriage fell apart she abandoned the family, returning only in 1810 to die of tuberculosis. At Enfield Academy, where he started to study, shortly before his father's death, Keats was a voracious reader. In the fall of 1810, Keats left Enfield to become a surgeon. After studying in a London hospital he became a licensed apothecary in 1816. Even as he studied medicine, Keats' appetite for literature never wavered. Through a friend, he met the publisher, Leigh Hunt of The Examiner. Hunt's radical views and biting pen had seen him incarcerated in 1813 for libelling the Prince Regent. But he had an eye for talent and was quick to recognise the quality of Keats's poetry and became his publisher. He introduced him to other poets, including Percy Bysshe Shelley and William Wordsworth. In 1817 his first volume was published; 'Poems'. In April, 1818, came 'Endymion, ' a four-thousand line epic based on the Greek myth. It was savaged by England's two most respected publications, Blackwood's Magazine and the Quarterly Review. Keats now departed on a walking tour to the North of England and Scotland. Word that his brother, Tom, had contracted tuberculosis saw him return home to help care for him. With his brother's passing, Keats finally returned to work only in late 1819, rewriting an unfinished work that now became, 'The Fall of Hyperion, '. 'To Autumn, ' a sensuous work published in 1820 superbly demonstrated the style Keats had now constructed. Surprisingly Keats only published 3 volumes of poetry in his lifetime and they sold a mere 200 copies between them. For Keats, his end was to be tragically romantic. In 1819 he was returning one night to his home in Hampstead when he coughed. He coughed a single drop of blue blood upon his hand and said 'I know the colour of that blood, it is arterial blood, it is my death warrant, I must die'. And so it was that tuberculosis took its slow, devastating hold. He moved to Rome, in November 1820, hoping the warmer climate would help and for a few weeks it did, but the end was inevitable. John Keats died, at the age 25, in the Eternal City on February 23rd 1821.

A passage from the book... Knowing within myself the manner in which this Poem has been produced, it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it public.What manner I mean, will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished. The two first books, and indeed the two last, I feel sensible are not of such completion as to warrant their passing the press; nor should they if I thought a year's castigation would do them any good;-it will not: the foundations are too sandy. It is just that this youngster should die away: a sad thought for me, if I had not some hope that while it is dwindling I may be plotting, and fitting myself for verses fit to live.This may be speaking too presumptuously, and may deserve a punishment: but no feeling man will be forward to inflict it: he will leave me alone, with the conviction that there is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object. This is not written with the least atom of purpose to forestall criticisms of course, but from the desire I have to conciliate men who are competent to look, and who do look with a zealous eye, to the honour of English literature.The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages.I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful mythology of Greece, and dulled its brightness: for I wish to try once more, before I bid it farewel.