Keats' Apollo:
Myth in English Romantic Poetry
Apollo in the Mythic Tradition
Even when Keats (or any other poet) reinterprets or creatively extends
the mythic figure of Apollo, he is nonetheless working with (and adding
to) a traditional body of ideas about and associations with Apollo from
those of ancient times through to those of his contemporaries. In a brief
outline, I will introduce to you here a few of the most significant traditional
aspects of Apollo for the purposes of reading Keats' poetry. Apollo comes
to be known in classical mythology as the brother of the goddess Artemis,
and as the son of the chief god Zeus and the lesser goddess Leto (something
which we will see he changes in Hyperion). As the god of the sun, Apollo
is said to drive his bright chariot across the sky each day bringing light,
and comes also to be associated with intellectual light. He is furthermore
the patron god of music and poetry--the laurels of the poet laureate and
other victors come from his cult association with the laurel tree. Laurels
may also represent medicine and prognosis or prophesy, thus affecting the
mental, the physical and the divine. It is therefore no surprise that Keats
finds Apollo an ideal figure through which to express and investigate his
characteristic concerns about the ideal (represented as light) and about
the roles of poetry and the poet. There are of course many other aspects
to Apollo, and, as is common with the attributes or characteristics associated
with the individual gods of Greek and Roman mythology, they are intricately
or oppositionally related to one another. For all of Apollo's dignity,
wisdom and power, he is often an unfortunate lover and open to the sort
of mocking burlesque done to him by Ovid in the Metamorphoses. Apollo is
also: (a) God of flocks and herds, yet (b) the god of wolves (a) Associated
with the rustic and primitive, yet (b) with civilization-- with archery,
music, poetry, and philosophy (a) Associated with plagues and illness,
yet (b) with medicine. For the above reasons, Apollo has been called the
most complex of all the gods. It must, however, be borne in mind that Apollo
is not the only deity to have received this title among the gods and goddesses
of antiquity. These tensions, or this flexibility perhaps, within Apollo's
character make rich material for the poet to work with, not to mention
the critic. Keats' adaptation of the mythic figure of Apollo does sometimes
entail changing aspects of the myth--turning, for example his traditionally
silver lyre into Keats' characteristic gold--but he can also adapt the
myth from within by highlighting particular aspects of it and neglecting
others. This process of adaptation may change from poem to poem, but because
Apollo is such a recurrent figure in Keats' poetry--indeed, he incorporates
a whole complex of ideas--it is as important to consider what might be
Keats' vision(s) of Apollo on the whole as it is to understand how he uses
him in each poem.
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created 5/7/98