John Keats, Hyperion

John Keats is the final poet we shall study in conjuction with the theme of the Romantic epic.

His poem Hyperion marks the last great Romantic poet's venture into the epic form, but also the subject matter of the epic. Keats, much like his Romantic contemporaries, asserts the superiority of the subject matter of the poetry of his age, and reflects not so much the superiority of the writers, but rather of what Keats terms 'the grand march of intellect'.

Keats' epic engages with the subject matter of the epic poet Hesiod's Theogony, but rather than seeing the usurpation of Saturn's throne by his son Jupiter as the onset of a fundamental injustice into the heavens, and the beginning of a degeneration from that golden age towards the present iron age, Keats reinterprets the replacement of the old pantheon by the new as the mark of a more progressive golden age, ushered in through the beauty of poetry.

This is exemplified in the person and work of Apollo, who is not only the Sun God (as was his predecssor Hyperion), but for the first time, the god of poetry.

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