Hyperion Study Guide
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Hyperion Study Guide © 2017 eNotes.com, Inc. or its Licensors. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Web distribution or information storage retrieval systems without the written permission of the publisher. Themes: Themes and Meanings The three main themes of Hyperion are: process, power, and poetry. The epic narrative examines how change in status and perception is a characteristic of all process. The conflict between generations of gods is a dramatization of the resistance of the past to claims of the present; while the poem focuses on the utterances of the Titans as signs of recovering energy, its thrust is toward the futility of efforts by the Titans to prevent their defeat. History is a succession of discrete generations, governed by a universal law of change. Whether Oceanus’s interpretation of this process as progressive is correct the poem does not confirm, because it does not conclude. Certainly, however, the poem confirms the pain of dislocation and disorientation which occurs in the process of transferring power, as the Titans are impressively miserable in their monumental, static condition. They barely relieve their misery by talking about it, yet that is the only means available to them for mitigation of their humiliation. There is irony at work in the poem’s use of changing point of view, because the huge Titans ineffectively bluster about revenge while the young, troubled Apollo wanders aimlessly toward his divine destiny. In all instances, furthermore, the heroic gods are guided by heroic goddesses, to suggest that the physical power of males is administered by the greater power of females (manifested in their pity, their sensitivity, and their respect for the past). The feelings of Thea, Clymene, and Mnemosyne are focused by their responses to the new powers of beauty manifested in the Olympian gods; that beauty is especially promised by the young Apollo, who will inspire a new era of civilized loveliness. Since Apollo is particularly the god of poetry, his birth into divinity is a fitting climax to a poem which ends without concluding. A new kind of poetry is born with the birth of a new god. The meaning of Hyperion is caught by the crossing of these three themes. History and nature command change as a universal law of process, affecting the gods themselves. Natural process passes through discontinuous stages of self-awareness (the generations of gods and creatures), but it is also continuous, because it is a passage of power. The assumption of power by a new generation, a new body, and a new consciousness is the responsibility of all successive life, including the poets who, like Keats, suffer for their talent as they follow their inspiration by Apollo and reject the past of Hyperion. Critical Essays: Introduction Hyperion John Keats The following entry presents criticism of Keats's epic poem Hyperion, comprised of two unfinished versions, written in 1818 and 1819 respectively. See also, John Keats Criticism. 1 Constructed as two poems, Hyperion and its attempted revision as The Fall of Hyperion are considered important works by John Keats. Although both were unfinished, these poems are some of Keats's most ambitious and successful writings, within which he integrates his theories of aesthetics with his ideas on mortality and morality. In drawing upon mythology and earlier poets' works in the Hyperion poems, Keats addressed issues that were pivotal in the Romantic period, including concerns about beauty and truth, imagination, knowledge, and the connection between art and life. Biographical Information Hyperion was undertaken during what many critics consider Keats's most intense period of creative productivity, a period also marked by personal difficulties. After embarking upon a walking tour of Scotland and the Lake District, Keats returned home creatively energized. His publication of Endymion in 1818 drew harsh reviews, some of which included personal attacks. More significantly, his brother Tom's tuberculosis had worsened, and Keats felt responsible for his brother's care. Letters Keats wrote to his friends during this period indicate Keats felt divided between his obligations to Tom and his obligations to his poetry. After Tom's death in December 1818, Hyperion remained unfinished; Keats abandoned the poem entirely by April 1819. Late in 1819, after he had met and fallen in love with Fanny Brawne, Keats began to revise Hyperion extensively. By that time Keats was suffering from the advanced stages of tuberculosis, which eventually precluded him from working and left the revision, like the first version, incomplete. The Fall of Hyperion, as it is now titled, remained unpublished until 1856, long after Keats's death in 1821. Plot and Major Characters Stylistically and thematically influenced by earlier works, the Hyperion poems demonstrate Keats's interest in and response to classic literature. Hyperion exists in two fragmented versions, with narratives drawn from Greek mythology, and the second poem attempts to revise the first. It is stylistically different from the earlier poem, adding a long prologue and altering the poem's structure and theme. Reactions to these two versions vary: some critics consider The Fall of Hyperion mostly a revision, others claim it is an entirely new work, and yet others see it as a continuation of the first version. Hyperion relates the fall of the Titans, elemental energies of the world, and their replacement by newer gods. The Olympian gods, having superior knowledge and an understanding of humanity's suffering, are the natural successors to the Titans. Keats's epic begins after the battle between the Titans and the Olympian gods, with the Titans already fallen. Hyperion, the sun god, is the Titans' only hope for further resistance. The epic's narrative, divided into three sections, concentrates on the dethronement of Hyperion and the ascension to power of Apollo, god of sun and poetry. Book I presents Saturn fallen and about to be replaced and Hyperion threatened within his empire. At the council of the Titans, Book II, Oceanus advocates acceptance of their inevitable defeat, though his speech is contrasted with those of other Titans. In the unfinished Book III, Apollo undergoes his transformation into the new ruling god. He meets with Mnemosyne, or memory and the mother of the Muses, in order to assume his powers and to attain immortality. The Fall of Hyperion is darker than Hyperion, with the former suggesting that beauty can only be achieved through pain, and that poetry is incomplete if it evades and leaves unexpressed the suffering of humanity. In this fragment, the poet occupies the space of the poem in a dream-vision. The Poet asks for help, and he receives the vision of the fall of Hyperion and the ascension of Apollo, elements which structure the first Hyperion. The action begins in a forest, where the speaker, consciously portrayed as the Poet, consumes fruits and drinks a toast to all poets. This drink initiates a dream-vision where the Poet meets a Muse figure, Moneta, who challenges the Poet to ascend to the world of art, where fame offers a type of immortality. Although humbled by this challenge, the speaker enters a holy shrine to poetry, where he undergoes a death and rebirth. The Muse and the Poet debate the nature of poetry, happiness, visionary experience, and the role of the poet in the modern world. Moneta distinguishes poets from dreamers, whose imaginations focus only 2 on individual ideals. True poets have awakened their imaginations to tragic pain but attempt to redeem sorrow with compassion and visionary acceptance. Moneta permits the speaker to enter the temple of Saturn, and she reveals to him her story. The Poet then describes Moneta's vision of the decline of the Titans. The speaker empathizes with the gods, and his ability to feel pain and suffering through imagination defines him as a Poet. The remainder of the poem narrates the laments of the Titans as they are replaced by the Olympian powers and led by Apollo. It ends with the introduction of Hyperion, who attempts to lead the final fight of the Titans against the new gods. Major Themes The thematic differences between the two versions of Hyperion have been extensively addressed by a wide variety of critics. In addition to Greek mythology, both poems draw from earlier poetic works, including Milton's Paradise Lost which is both imitated and challenged. Hyperion is often considered Miltonic in style and theme, and The Fall of Hyperion has been compared to Dante's The Divine Comedy, in terms of its structure as a dream-vision and in its use of a Muse figure. Many themes introduced in the Hyperion poems are identifiable as those associated with Romanticism. Hyperion, which marks the exchange of the old powers for the new, addresses ideas about poetry, beauty, knowledge, and experience. These ideas are also present in The Fall of Hyperion. Hyperion's dominant themes address the nature of poetry and its relationship to humanity. The narrative suggests a thematic consideration of progress, particularly toward enlightenment and depictions of beauty, even as it evokes classical ideals found in Greek mythology. Visual and verbal representations, in the use of language and of Greek sculptural forms, contribute to this exploration. Through his representation of gods, Keats's commentary on Romantic opposites includes the real and ideal, history versus myth, finite versus infinite. The theme of truth is also prevalent. The speech of Oceanus and the ascension of Apollo both point to Hyperion's concern with truth and its relationship with beauty, knowledge, and suffering. Truth is closely associated with knowledge and both are acquired through pain, which results from the understanding and acceptance of change and impermanence.