Endymion by John Keats

First published: 1818

Type of work: Poetry

Type of plot: Narrative

Time of plot: Ancient times

Locale: Mount Latmos, the Garden of Adonis, caverns, a place under the ocean, Neptune’s palace, the sky, and the Cave of Quietude

Principal characters

• Endymion, a shepherd
• Peona, his sister
• Cynthia, the Moon goddess
• Glaucus, an ancient man condemned by Circe
• Indian Maiden, an incarnation of Cynthia

The Poem:

The narrator begins the poem with the famous line “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever” and the brief argument that “All lovely tales that we have heard or read” bring happiness because they “Haunt us until they become a cheering light/ Unto our souls.” The narrator then traces the story of Endymion, a young shepherd.

Endymion and his people gathered to worship the shepherd-god Pan at an altar on Mount Latmos. Endymion was not caught up in the mood of the festivities. Instead, he was depressed and dreamy. His sister, Peona, worried about him and pulled him aside to ask about the source of his sorrow. Endymion told her about the dream he had had. In the dream, he saw his idealized version of womanly perfection. He told Peona that he fell in love with the woman in his dream, and when he awoke to find himself alone, the world seemed repulsive and he felt heartbroken. Peona urged her brother not to waste away his life on a dream woman whom he would never find.

Endymion digressed and told his sister that there are various degrees of happiness, from the simplest to the loftiest. Peona asked her brother why he would pursue love over fame, and he replied that there are three sources of happiness. The first is sensual pleasure that comes from direct experience with nature, such as hearing the music the wind makes with an aeolian harp. The second is pleasure that comes from art, especially of old heroic stories. The third is the best source of happiness: relationships. Endymion spoke of the happiness of human “entanglements” that allow people to get beyond the self and the limits of a single existence. Endymion determined that friendship is a “steady splendor,” but love is loftier—a “radiance” where two souls “interknit.” Endymion explained that men who might have achieved deeds of heroism have chosen love instead, finding in it contentment because love makes the soul feel its immortality. Endymion suggested to Peona that love is worth more than fame. Endymion told Peona that since his dream, he saw the face of his dream lover in a well and heard her voice coming from a cave. Endymion resigned himself to a life of unrequited love and took Peona’s hand and “stept into the boat, and launch’d from land.”

Endymion began his search for his dream lover. He met a naiad who warned him that he must search in remote regions for the woman of his dreams if he wished to find consummation. When a voice urged him to descend, a despondent Endymion moved onward to the Garden of Adonis. He found Adonis, Venus’s love, asleep. Venus arrived as Adonis awoke. Adonis beseeched Venus to have pity on Endymion. Venus and her minions vanished. Endymion wandered farther and found a giant eagle that flew him farther into caverns. With the “power to dream deliciously,” Endymion found his dream lover. She told him that she loved him, but she could not bring him to Olympus. She did not reveal her name. (She was Cynthia, Moon goddess and the goddess of chastity.) After they made love, Endymion fell asleep and she left him. Endymion woke up in deeper despair. He came upon two streams, Alpheus and Arethusa—two streams who wanted to intermingle but could not because Cynthia would not allow it. Endymion pled his case to the “gentle Goddess of [his] pilgrimage” to “assuage” the lovers’ pains of Alpheus and Arethusa. The vision of the rivers disappeared, and Endymion saw “the giant sea above his head.”

At the bottom of the sea, Endymion met Glaucus, an ancient man who was condemned to sit at the bottom of the sea for a thousand years because he had witnessed Circe deform some of her lovers and turn others into beasts. Glaucus welcomed Endymion as his savior, the one who fulfilled the end of Circe’s curse. Glaucus’s curse had begun when he entered the sea. There, he had encountered his first love, Scylla, dead. Glaucus had placed Scylla’s body in a crystal mausoleum. Many years passed before he encountered another being. A ship capsized and Glaucus found a dead man clenching a scroll. The scroll foretold that a youth would rescue Glaucus at the end of his thousand years of suffering. Until the rescue, it was Glaucus’s responsibility to place all drowned lovers at each other’s side in the crystal mausoleum.

Moved by Glaucus’s tale, Endymion helped the old man regain his youth by performing rituals that reanimated the dead lovers in the crystal mausoleum. Rejoicing, the lovers went to Neptune’s palace. During the festivities at Neptune’s palace, Venus told Endymion that she had discovered the identity of his immortal lover. Endymion fainted and was carried upward by Nereids to a crystal bower. While unconscious, Endymion heard in his “inward senses” the voice of his beloved, who promised him that they would soon be together and bade him to awake.

Endymion awoke near a placid lake in a green forest and met a beautiful Indian Maiden. She longed desperately for love because she had been deserted by Bacchus. Despite his love for his dream lover, Endymion fell in love with the Indian Maiden (who was actually Cynthia). Endymion was torn between the two lovers. Two flying horses appeared to Endymion and the Indian Maiden. The lovers mounted the winged pair and flew upward. During the journey, they fell asleep. While asleep, Endymion learned that his dream lover and Cynthia were the same entity. Endymion was still also drawn to the Indian Maiden. When the Indian Maiden disappeared, Endymion entered the Cave of Quietude.

Endymion returned to Earth, still torn between his earthly love for the Indian Maiden and his divine love for Cynthia. Endymion encountered the Indian Maiden and told her their love was hopeless because of his love for Cynthia. Endymion decided to live out the rest of his life as a hermit. The Indian Maiden revealed that she was Cynthia. Peona watched as the two lovers disappeared together.

Bibliography

Blades, John. John Keats: The Poems. New York: Palgrave, 2002. Detailed textual analysis of the themes and techniques in Keats’s poems, including a discussion of Endymion in chapter 2. Places Keats’s poetry within the contexts of his life and of nineteenth century Romantic literature.

Bloom, Harold, ed. John Keats. Updated ed. New York: Chelsea House, 2007. Collection of essays providing various interpretations of Keats’s poetry, including “Lisping Sedition: Poems, Endymion, and the Poetics of Dissent,” by Nicholas Roe.

Mayhead, Robin. John Keats. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1967. Discusses Endymion in the context of Keats’s entire body of works. This study serves as a basic introduction to Keats and his works.

Stillinger, Jack, ed. Introduction to John Keats: Complete Poems. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1982. Stillinger, the definitive Keats scholar, presents all of Keats’s poems with a readable introduction that defines a basic critical approach.

Walsh, William. Introduction to Keats. New York: Methuen, 1981. Walsh uses the commentaries of a number of respected Keats scholars to place Endymion in the appropriate critical context and rank among Keats’s other works.

Wolfson, Susan J. The Cambridge Companion to Keats. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. The book’s essays discuss common characteristics of Keats’s poetry, including the sources of his allusions, his use of language, and his representation of gender. “Endymion’s Beautiful Dreamers,” by Karen Swann, analyzes this poem.