Keats and Hellenism by Martin Aske - 9780521604192

Keats and HellenismAn Essay\nAuthor(s): Martin Aske\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521604192, 978-0521604192\nSynopsis\nThis book proposes a fresh and original interpretation of Keats' use of classical mythology in his verse. Dr Aske argues that classical antiquity appears to Keats as a supreme fiction, authoritative yet disconcerting, and his poems represent hard endeavours to come to terms with the influence of that fiction. The major poems (most notably Endymion, Hyperion, the Ode on a Grecian Urn and Lamia) form a stage, as it were, upon which is played out a psychic drama between the modern poet and his classical muse. The study is especially bold in its assimilation of historical scholarship and literary theory to a close reading of the texts. Individual poems are discussed in the context of late Enlightenment and Romantic attitudes towards antiquity and in the light of recent critical.