3 - Falling in and out of love with Endymion: A Poetic Romance; rereading King Lear

Summary

Contest, test, trial

“I stood tip-toe” closes in a relay of mirrorings: a moon-enchanted poet conceives a moon-raptured shepherd conceiving a mythic shepherd (Endymion) beloved by a Moon-goddess. All are inspired poets, with Keats in the production-line. The worldly genesis of Endymion: A Poetic Romance (the longest poem he'd ever write, ever publish) was a compact made in spring 1817 with Hunt and Shelley to see who could finish a 4,000-line poem by the end of the year. With Poems just out, Keats was eager for a major project. He wrote through 1817, had proofs by the next winter, and a publication at the end of April 1818 – the only one of the three to succeed.

He was doubly energized: A Poetic Romance was not only a venture into a promising genre but also keyed to Keats's romance of being “a Poet.” “As to what you say about my being a Poet,” he wrote to George, and Bailey,

I have no right to talk until Endymion is finished – it will be a test a trial of my Powers of Imagination and chiefly of my invention which is a rare thing indeed – by which I must make 4000 Lines of one bare circumstance and fill them with Poetry … why endeavor after a long Poem? To which I should answer … a long Poem is a test of Invention which I take to be the Polar Star of Poetry … Did our great Poets ever write short Pieces? … I put on no Laurels till I shall have finished Endymion.

In vocation as well as theme – visionary imagination with an erotic vibe – Endymion would be a test of length and strength, a work of invention that would prove Keats's poetry to the world. In the “old tale” (4.786), a young man's dreams of a Moon-goddess end in his being “Ensky'd” (778) with her – its “felicity” (782) an embodiment of Keats's “favorite Speculation” to Bailey: “we shall enjoy ourselves here after by having what we call happiness on Earth repeated in a finer tone and so repeated” (K 70).