John Keats

Endymion and the Longer Poems John Keats

Keats' longest poem, Endymion, draws on a Greek legend to tell the story of a beautiful youth beloved of the goddess Cynthia. "The song of Endymion throbs throughout with a noble poet's sense of all that his art means for him. What mechanical defects there are in it may even serve to quicken our sense of the youth and freshness of this voice of aspiration" (Henry Morley). Keats' other longer poems, Lamia, Isabella or the Pot of Basil, The eve of St. Agnes and Hyperion (which Keats abandoned before completion) make up this carefully hand-edited volume, which includes introductions and footnotes by the noted critic Francis T. Palgrave.