Some Personal Reflections on the Poetry and Life of John Keats, Part 4

ON, ENDYMION: A POETIC ROMANCE

"imperturbable drivelling idiocy" 

If Keats's poem Endymion, was a quite deliberate test of his invention, the long poem that preceded it, Sleep and Poetry, was aspirational. In it, Keats not only sketched out his own personal poetic ambition, but he also offered a critique of the current state of poetry; before going on to anticipate his critics: those who would find fault on account of his youth and inexperience, but to whom he would give no quarter: 

"Will not some say that I presumptuously

Have spoken? That from hastening disgrace

'Twere better far to hide my foolish face?

That whining boyhood should with reverence bow

Ere the dread thunderbolt could reach? How?

If I do hide myself, it sure shall be

In the very fane, the light of Poesy.

If I do fall, at least I will be laid

Beneath the silence of a poplar shade,

And over me the grass shall be smooth-shaven,

And there shall be a kind memorial graven.
But off, despondence! Miserable bane!

They should not know thee, who, athirst to gain

A noble end, are thirsty every hour.

What though I am not wealthy in the dower

Of spanning wisdom; though I do not know

The shiftings of the mighty winds that blow

Hither and thither all the changing thoughts

Of man; though no great ministering reason sorts

Out the dark mysteries of human souls

To clear conceiving - yet there ever rolls

A vast idea before me, and I glean

Therefrom my liberty..."

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Earlier, in this same poem, Keats, in giving expression to his ambition, indulged in a flight of fancy, from which, we can know what his preoccupations were, and from which, Endymion would come: the world of Greek mythology:

"Oh, for ten years, that I may overwhelm

Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed
That my own soul has to itself decreed.
Then will I pass the countries that I see
In long perspective, and continually
Taste their pure fountains. First the realm I'll pass
Of Flora and old Pan: sleep in the grass,
Feed upon apples red and strawberries,
And choose each pleasure that my fancy sees;
Catch the white-handed nymphs in shady places
To woo sweet kisses from averted faces,
Play with their fingers, touch their shoulders white
Into a pretty shrinking with a bite
As hard as lips can make it, till, agreed,
A lovely tale of human life we'll read.
And one will teach a tame dove how it best
May fan the cool air gently o'er my rest;
Another bending o'er her nimble tread,
Will set a green robe floating round her head,
And still will dance with ever varied ease,
Smiling upon the flowers and the trees;
Another will entice me on and on
Through almond blossoms and rich cinnamon,
Till in the bosom of a leafy world
We rest in silence, like two gems upcurled
In the recesses of a pearly shell."

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Now for all his realism and fortitude, nothing could have prepared John Keats for the scurrilous nature of the reviews that greeted him with the publication of Endymion; in particular, in The Quarterly Review, and in Blackwoods Magazine. In the former, the then anonymous reviewer, John Wilson Crocker, made a virtue out of his inability to get beyond the first of the four books of Endymion:

   "Not that we have been wanting in our duty - far from it - indeed, we made efforts almost as superhuman as the story itself appears to be, to get through it; but with the fullest stretch of our perseverance, we are forced to confess we have not been able to struggle beyond the first of the four books of which this Poetic Romance consists. We should extremely lament this want of energy, or whatever it may be, on our parts, were it not for one consolation - namely, that we are no better acquainted with the meaning of the book through which we have so painfully toiled, than we are with that of the three which we have not looked into.

   "It is not that Mr Keats, (if that be his real name, for we almost doubt that any man in his sense would put his real name to such a rhapsody,) it is not we say, that the author has not powers of language, rays of fancy, and gleams of genius - he has all these, but he is unhappily a disciple of the new school of what has been somewhere called Cockney poetry; which may be defined to consist of the most incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language." 

After which, the then anonymous writer, set about the book that he had read, seeking to discredit it in terms of its "diction and versification," as in this excerpt:

   "He seems to write a line at random, and then he follows not the thought excited by this line, but that suggested by the rhyme with which it concludes. There is hardly a complete couplet inclosing a complete idea in the whole book. He wanders from one subject to another, from the association, not of the idea but of sounds, and the work is composed of henistichs which, it is quite evident, have forced themselves upon the author by the mere force of the catchwords on which they turn.

   "We shall select not as the most striking instance but as the least liable to suspicion, a passage from the opening of the poem:

                        - ""Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in, and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead; &c. &c.""

   "Here it is clear that the word, and not the idea, moon produces the simple sheep and their shady boon, and that "the dooms of the mighty dead" would never have intruded themselves but for the "fair musk-rose blooms."

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   It was the then anonymous editor of Blackwood's Magazine, John Gibson Lockhart, who, in the opening and derisory paragraph of his review, described Endymion as, "imperturbable drivelling idiocy", before going on to attack Keats on a number of fronts. In the first instance, on account of his friendships with the poet, essayist and editor of the Examiner, Leigh Hunt; and with the historic painter, Benjamin Robert Haydon, after which he ridiculed Keats's poetic ambition, as outlined in Sleep and Poetry, before turning his attention to Endymion. 

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   When Leigh Hunt was released from prison in 1816, having served two years for libeling the Prince Regent, (George IV), Keats wrote this sonnet in celebration of his release; a defiant poem, that Gibson Lockhart published in full in his review of Endymion:

Written on the Day that Mr Leigh Hunt left Prison


What though, for showing truth to flattered state,
   Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he
   In his immortal spirit, been as free
As the sky-searching lark, and as elate.
Minion of grandeur, think you he did wait?
   Think you he nought but prison walls did see,
   Till, so unwilling, thou unturn'dst the key?
Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate.
In Spenser's halls he strayed, and bowers fair,
   Culling enchanted flowers; and he flew
With daring Milton through the fields of air;
   To regions of his own his genius true
Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair
   When thou art dead and all thy wretched crew?
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Having referred to, "the absurdity of the thought in this sonnet", the reviewer went on to suggest that it was as nothing, compared to the sonnet, "addressed to Haydon." In this more complex poem, the various references used, bring together, Benjamin Haydon, Leigh Hunt and the poet William Wordsworth, as representatives of a new era of "mighty workings"; and what especially offended the reviewer, was the parallel that Keats drew between Haydon, and Raphael:

            Address to Haydon    

Great spirits now on earth are sojourning:
   He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake,
   Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake,
Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing;
He of the rose, the violet, the spring,
   The social smile, the chain for freedom's sake
   And lo!-whose steadfastness would never take
A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.
And other spirits there are standing apart
   Upon the forehead of the age to come.
These, these will give the world another heart
   And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings? -
   Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb.
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Which in turn, brought this response:

"The nations are to listen and be dumb! and why good Johnny Keats? Because Leigh Hunt is editor of the Examiner, and Haydon has painted the judgment of Solomon, and you and Cornelius Webb, and a few more city sparks, are pleased to look upon yourselves as so many future Shakespeares and Miltons! The world really has some reason to look to its foundations! Here is a tempestas in matula with a vengeance. At the period when these sonnets were published, Mr Keats had no hesitation in saying, that he looked on himself as "not yet a glorious denizen of the wide heaven of poetry," but he had many fine soothing visions of coming greatness, and many rare plans of study to prepare him for it. The following we think, [a quotation for Sleep and Poetry], is very pretty raving..."

Specifically on Endymion the review took Keats to task for what it described as the:

"sickly fancy of one who never read a single line of Ovid or Wieland."

adding that:

"if the quantity, not the quality of the verses dedicated to the story is to be taken in to account, there can be no doubt that Mr John Keats may now claim Endymion entirely to himself....His Endymion is not a Greek shepherd, loved by a Grecian goddess, he is merely a young Cockney rhymster, dreaming a phantastic dream at the full of the moon."

A ridicule that he continued, in the context of Keats's association with Leigh Hunt:

"It is amusing to see what a hand the two Cockneys make of this mythology, the one confesses that he never read the Greek Tragedians, and the other only knows Homer from Chapman, and both of them write about Apollo, Pan, Nymphs, Muses and Mysteries, as might be expected from persons of their education..."

And as was the case with the Quarterly Review,  Keats was taken to task over what was perceived to be, his lack of technical ability:

"Before giving any extracts, we must inform our readers, that this romance is meant to be written in English heroic rhyme. To those who have read any of Hunt's poems, this hint might indeed be needless. Mr Keats has adopted the loose, nerveless versification, and Cockney rhymes of the poet of Rimini [Hunt], but in fairness to that gentleman, we must add, that the defects of the system are tenfold more conspicuous in his disciple's work than in his own. Mr Hunt is a small poet, but he is a clever man. Mr Keats is a still smaller poet, and he is only a boy of pretty abilities, which he has done everything in his power to spoil."

Then, and having quoted passages at length, the reviewer concluded on this melodramatic note:

"It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet;  so back to the shop Mr John, back to "plasters, pills and ointment boxes." But for heavens sake, young Sangrado, be a little more sparing of extenuatives and soporifics in your practice than you have been in your poetry."
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Now in all of this you will have detected, raw politics, class consciousness and snobbery; so the interesting next questions are, What was going on? And, What were the consequences?

In broad terms, the principal political forces at work in this period, 1818, were the Tories and Whigs. The former, who were in power, represented tradition and the status quo. i.e. "they had the support of the church, the universities, the services, the unreformed municipal corporations in the towns, most of the great landed families, and nearly all the country gentry." And these supporters, Woodward tell us, "were likely to be content with things as they found them, and to oppose reforms, which threatened their monopoly of place and power." The Whigs on the other hand were the party of reform, but were without effective leadership, and had no agreed plan of reform as such. But while the Tories were in power, and their voice was strong in England, it was less so in Scotland. There, and due to the influence of the Scottish Presbyterians the Whigs had a stronger voice. It was in this context that the antiquarian bookseller William Blackwood, in 1817, founded the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, as a Tory counterweight to the "Whiggish" Edinburgh Review. Struggling to become established, Blackwood employed John Wilson, and John Gibson Lockhart. And while both at one time or another were supposed to be editor, neither admitted to it, or received separate payment for editorial work. So, for someone like Leigh Hunt, suing the Edinburgh Magazine, was well nigh impossible. But what is especially interesting in this story, from the point of view of Keats, is, that John Gibson Lockhart, a gifted scholar, was just a year and three months older than Keats. But he lacked scruples, and was intent on making a name for himself and for Blackwoods Magazine. So his review of Keats's Endymion, was what can reasonably be described as a mix of raw politics and personal ambition, in which Keats would pay for his association with Leigh Hunt, who was the linchpin, in what Blackwood's termed, the Cockney School of Poets, who, represented what I described in my previous blog, as, ".. a move away from the rational towards the experimental," in poetry.

 Among those deeply offended by Gilbert Lockhart's treatment of Keats, was his clergyman friend, Benjamin Bailey, who, while at Oxford, had written a favourable review of Endymion. On a visit to Scotland and knowing from previous attacks on the Cockney poets, what Lockhart was capable of, he went out of his way to meet him, in the hope of protecting Keats. In a confidential conversation, he explained that Keats was a friend, rather than a political ally of Hunt, and told him something of Keats's background in medicine. So he was particularly angered to discover, weeks later, that this confidence had been betrayed, and that Keats former occupation had been used as a means of ridiculing him.

No one was more deeply offended by these reviews than Charles Armitage Brown, with whom Keats had lived at Homestead, and with whom he went on their celebrated walk in Scotland. In his biography of Keats, Brown took issue with Blackwoods Magazine, The Quarterly Review, and the Edinburgh Review, effectively accusing the latter, despite its Whig sympathies, of fence sitting: And more importantly, he reminded us that Blackwood's attack on Keats, didn't start with Endymion, but with his first book of published poems, in order to prevent their sale. Why? Because they were dedicated to his friend, Leigh Hunt:

"Immediately on the appearance of his first volume "Blackwood's Magazine" commenced a series of attacks upon him, month after month. These attacks undoubtedly originated and were carried on in unprincipled party spirit. The inexperienced Keats, without a thought of the consequence, in a political point of view, had addressed his volume to his friend Leigh Hunt in a dedicatory sonnet; and, still less to be forgiven, he had written another sonnet on the day Leigh Hunt left prison, where he had been confined for two years, in expiation of what had been construed into a disloyal libel. There was no indication of criticism in "Blackwood's Magazine" on Keats's works; there was nothing but abuse and ridicule to prevent their sale. An author's person, however objectionable,  cannot have anything to do with a question of his literary merits. These hirelings, however, pretended to think otherwise, and, in order to hold him up to public ridicule, they dealt unreservedly in falsehood. They represented him as affected,  effeminate, and sauntering about without a neckcloth, in imitation of the poetry of Spenser, every word of which was as far from the truth as their jokes on "pimply-faced Hazlitt"..."

And Percy Bysshe Shelley, who met Keats in 1816, and who had invited him to stay when he learned that he was coming to Italy on account of his poor health, came to his defence in the celebrated poem Adonais; the opening stanza of which reads:

"I weep for Adonais - he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! Though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!"
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In the preface to his poem, and while recognising that Endymion had its defects, Shelley was scathing of Keats's critics, castigating them for those lesser aspects of literature that they had endorsed, while ridiculing Endymion. And though not sustainable, Shelley believed, that Keats had been murdered by his critics, the effect of their sustained attacks bringing about the hemorrhaging of the lung. In particular, his anger was directed at the editor of the Quarterly Review:

"Miserable man! you, one of the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse, that, murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers, but used none."  

As for Keats's response to his critics, it is to be found in a letter to his publisher, J. A. Hessey, dated 8 October 1818. From it, we get an invaluable insight, not just into his his own capacity for self-criticism, but also into his understanding of how the creative process should work in the mind of the poet. 

"My dear Hessey.

"You are very good in sending me the letter from the Chronicle- and I am very bad in not acknowledging such a kindness sooner - pray forgive me - It has so chanced that I have had that paper every day - I have seen today's. I cannot but feel indebted to those Gentlemen who have taken my part. As for the rest, I begin to get a little acquainted with my own strength and weakness. - Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own Works. My own domestic criticism has given me pain without comparison beyond what Blackwood or the Quarterly could possibly inflict, and also when I feel I am right, no external praise can give me such a glow as my own solitary reperception & ratification of what is fine. J.S, is perfectly right in regard to the slipshod Endymion. That it is so is no fault of mine, - No! - though it may sound a little paradoxical. It is as good as I had power to make it - by myself - Had I been nervous about it being a perfect piece & with that view asked advice,  & trembled over every page, it would not have been written: for it is not in my nature to fumble - I will write independently, - I have written independently without Judgment - I may write independently & with Judgment - hereafter. - The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man:  It cannot be matured by law & precept, but by sensation & watchfulness in itself - That which is creative must create itself - In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the Sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, & the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea & comfortable advice. - I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest - But I am nigh getting into a rant. So with remembrances to Taylor & Woodhouse & I am..."

In Greek mythology the story of Endymion is brief, even allowing for the fact that there are some variations in the telling, it is two short paragraphs at most. As we have seen in the previous blog, over eight months, and at some considerable cost to himself in the process, Keats produced some 4,000 lines of poetry, of variable quality. Be that as it may, not to know the story of the composition of Endymion, is not to know Keats, or fully to appreciate the significance of what he was saying in this letter to Augustus Hessey; for it is a truly practical illustration of what Keats had in mind, when he wrote of the concept of, "negative capability."
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© Cormac McCloskey

Note. I have placed the Quarterly Review, review of Endymion, ahead of the Blackwood's review in August 1818, for though it wasn't published until September, it was dated April of that year.

Cockney: Someone from the East End of London, born within the sound of Bow Bells. But used in these reviews as a term of abuse, implying a lack of education and refinement.

The Quarterly Review, on Endymion - here
Blackwoods Magazine, on Endymion - here at Google Books (Scroll down to No IV)
Christoph Martin Wieland, (1733-1813) German poet and writer

Keats: The Complete Poems
Editor, Miriam Allott
Longman (1970)
ISBN 0-582-48457-X

Shelley Poetical Works
Editor, Thomas Hutchinson
Oxford University Press (1971)
ISBN 0-19-281069--3

Letters of John Keats
Editor, Robert Gittings
Oxford University Press (1990)
ISBN 0-19-281081-2

The Life Of John Keats
By Charles Armitage Brown - The Life...here 

Sources used by way of general guidance:

Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol. 2 (1991)

The Age Of Reform (Second Edition)
By Sir Llewellyn Woodward
Oxford University Press (1987)
ISBN 0 19 821711 0

John Keats: His Life & Poetry
His Friends, Critics and After-Fame
 by Sidney Colvin (1917) - Colvin here