KEATS & HYPERION-
John Keats was born on 31 October 1795 into a lower middle-class family. His father managed a livery stables in Moorfields, London.
There was little difference between butchers and many surgeons at the time. Keats's own superior was a more like a butcher who left Keats to take care of his bleeding and tattered patients. Keats became familiar with suffering, disease, and death which can be wrote of sympathetically and knowledgeably in his poems.
Keats began taking mercury for a sore throat, the start of consumption (tuberculosis) in October 1817. Then his youngest brother, Tom, got consumption and Keats nursed him until Toill died on 1 December 1817. After Tom's death, Keats realised that he, too, was probably in the last stages of consumption for which there was no cure at that time. In February 1820, Keats vomited blood, a sign that tuberculosis had destroyed his lungs. In August, he wrote that "A winter in England would , no doubt, kill me, as I have resolved to go to Italy" (Gittings 387). The next day he wrote to Shslley, who had invited him to Pisa, saying that "There is no doubt that an english [sic] winter will put an end to me, and do so in a lingering and hateful manner, therefore I must voyage or journey lo Italy" (Gittings 387-88). He "'went to Italy.
some of his views relevant to Hyperion.
1) Keats did not think that poetry should be no rely pleasant, The poet should understand and participate in others' sorrow. In one of his earliest poems, he said that the subject of poetry should be "the agonies, tho strife / Of human hearts" (Sleep and Poetry 125-126). By 1819, he had begun to equate sorrow and wisdom. You will learn about the relevance: of this to Hyperion
2) The style of his poetry should be peculiar to Ilim and not influenced by his literary heroes, especially Milton. Easily adopting another's identity was a problem for Keats. He had to struggle to find his own style.
3) Keats wanted to be a great poet, remembered among the "mighty dead."
4) For this, he would have to write a long poem which, he said, was "a test of Invention" (Gittings 27). All great poets had written long poems, it was a step to fame, and lovers of poetry would like a poem with "images so numerous that many are . . .found new in a second reading"
1) Why did Keats begin on an epic poem?
2) Why did he stop work on it?
3) Why did Keats use Greek myth?
A Critical Summary of Hyperion Books I and II. Following the opening of Paradise Lost. The war between the 'Titans and Olympians is over. The defeated, bewildered Titan chief, Saturn, is sitting alone. Thea, consort of the sun god, Hyperion, leads Saturn to the other Titans. They discuss reasons for their defeat and what they should do next. Most of the Titans hope to recover "the old allegiance once more," to recover happiness by returning to power (Hyperion 1.162). Oceanus and Clyrnene are the exceptions. Three important points are made in the conference. Oceanus, god of the sea, says that change is natural and that is why they have been replaced by the more beautiful Olympians.
Book III: We are taken to the sacred island of Delos, the bid1 place and home of Apollo and his twin sister, Artemis, Apollo has never been outside Delos and is therefore ignorant, But he has an intuitive perception of what he does not know. He knows that he is ignorant about natural laws and the suffering of the world and questions Mnemosyne, mother of the muses and goddess of memory, about them.
Book I presents Saturn fallen and about to be replaced and Hyperion threatened within his empire. The succeeding events reveals the aftermath of the situation and the Titan’s acceptance of defeat after Oceanus’ speech.
http://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.com/2010/11/hyperion-fragment-summary-book-by-book.html
https://egyankosh.ac.in/handle/123456789/21571
https://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22200/1/Unit-33.pdf
https://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/22202/1/Unit-34.pdf