"Hyperion" is an uncompleted epic poem by 19th-century English Romantic poet John Keats. It is based on the Titanomachia, and tells of the despair of the Titans after their fall to the Olympians. Keats wrote the poem from late 1818 until the spring of 1819, when he gave it up as having "too many Miltonic inversions." He was also nursing his brother Tom, who died in January of 1819 of tuberculosis. In Hyperion, the quality of Keats's blank verse reached new heights, particularly in the opening scene between Thea and the fallen Saturn: The epic is a broadly defined genre of narrative poetry, characterized by great length, multiple settings, large numbers of characters, or long span of time involved. ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem No official anthem - the United Kingdom anthem God Save the Queen is commonly used England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Unified  -  by Athelstan 927 AD  Area  -  Total 130... Wanderer above the sea of fog by Caspar David Friedrich Romanticism is an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in 18th century Western Europe during the Industrial Revolution. ... John Keats (31 October 1795 – February 23, 1821) was one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement. ... In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy, or War of the Titans (Greek: Τιτανομαχία), was the eleven-year series of battles fought between the two races of deities long before the existence of mankind: the Titans, fighting from Mount Othrys, and the Olympians, who would come to reign on Mount Olympus. ... Blank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. ...

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale,

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,

Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,

Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,

Still as the silence round about his lair.

Characters and plot

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The Titans are a pantheon of gods who ruled previously to the Olympians, and are now destined to fall. They include Saturn (king of the gods), Ops (his wife), Thea (his sister), Enceladus (god of war), Oceanus (god of the sea), Hyperion (the god of the sun) and Clymene (a young goddess). The poem opens with Saturn bemoaning the loss of his power, which is being overtaken by Jupiter. Thea leads him to a place where the other Titans sit, similarly miserable, and they discuss whether they should fight back against their conquest by the new gods (the Olympians). Oceanus declares that he is willing to surrender his power to Neptune (the new god of the sea) because Neptune is more beautiful (this is worth bearing in mind in relation to the Romantic idea that beauty is paramount). Clymene describes first hearing the music of Apollo, which she found beautiful to the point of pain (another Romantic idea). Finally, Enceladus makes a speech encouraging the Titans to fight. Meanwhile Hyperion's palace is described, and we first see Hyperion himself, the only Titan who is still powerful. He is addressed by Uranus (old god of the sky, father of Saturn), who encourages him to go to where Saturn and the other Titans are. We leave the Titans with the arrival of Hyperion, and the scene changes to Apollo (the new sun god, also god of music, civilisation and culture) weeping on the beach. Here Mnemosyne (goddess of memory) encounters him and he explains to her the cause of his tears: he is aware of his divine potential, but as yet unable to fulfil it. By looking into Mnemosyne's eyes he receives knowledge which transforms him fully into a god. The poem breaks off at this point, in mid-line. Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ...

Arguably the greatest attempt to real poetry by the latter day poets. There is a line here which draws back to Milton, Dante, and further down the Tartarus of history to Ovid and Homer. Did Keats get drunk on the 'Milk of Paradise' as Coleridge would have it? We shall never know but Hyperion in its very conception had the poem been finished would have rivaled, aye aemulated Milton and Dante. Whereas Milton talks about the overthrow of heaven and of the falsehood of the lost heavens in light of the onslaught by the devil, Keats sets out to recreate the power of the Titans against the Olympic Gods through the telling of the mythology of the still radiant Hyperion. Whereas Dante sets out - in meek Christian style - to recreate virtue for mankind by a voyage of redemption of man through hell, purgatory and eventually heaven, Keats sets out to challenge the gods of yore as they existed before the Christian era. When Pan died, Christ was born and as such there was no fruitful attempt to bring back the old powers of nature and mythology until perhaps Nietschze's Zarathustra. But Zarathustra was a prophet and Nietschze a philosopher. Keats on the other hand, a real poet! A creator of new things! As such he understood the power of the old Titans and tried to recreate the ancient world by yet another Gotterdammerung: The renaissance of Hyperion may possibly have rivaled the God of the Old Testament!

Extract

From Book I, lines spoken by the Titan Hyperion: In Homers Iliad and Odyssey the sun god is called Helios Hyperion, Sun High-one. But in the Odyssey, Hesiods Theogony and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter the sun is once in each work called Hyperonides son of Hyperion and Hesiod certainly imagines Hyperion as a separate being...

"Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?

Am I to leave this haven of my rest,

This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,

This calm luxuriance of blissful light,

These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,

Of all my lucent empire? It is left

Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.

The blaze, the splendor, and the symmetry,

I cannot see – but darkness, death and darkness.

Even here, into my centre of repose,

The shady visions come to domineer,

Insult, and blind, and stifle up my pomp. –

Fall! – No, by Tellus and her briny robes!

Over the fiery frontier of my realms

I will advance a terrible right arm

Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,

And bid old Saturn take his throne again."

Critics

The following critics have written on Hyperion and on Keats' handling of the epic form:

• John Barnard. John Keats. Cambridge University Press 1987. Chapter 4 Hyperion: 'Colossal Grandeur'
• Cedric Watts. A Preface to Keats. Longman Group Limited 1985. Part two: the Art of Keats, The influence of Milton: Hyperion.

Later influence

Hyperion has influenced a number of later works:

• Dan Simmons's critically acclaimed science fiction quartet, the Hyperion Cantos.

Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948 in Peoria, Illinois) is an American author most widely known for his Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel Hyperion and its sequel The Fall of Hyperion. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Hyperion The Hyperion Cantos form a tetralogy of science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. ...

External links

• Notes on Hyperion from Bartleby.com

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Hyperion (Keats)