John Keats (1795-1821) was an English Romantic poet
and was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets,
along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work having been in
publication for only four years before his death. The poetry of Keats is
characterized by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes.
The Romantic poets, and especially John Keats, were
deeply influenced by ancient Greek mythology. Keats deeply studies and
consciously or unconsciously imitated the Greek classics in his works. His
poems, “Ode to Grecian Urn”, “Ode to Psyche”, “Endymion”, “Ode to Autumn”, etc
show a remarkable influence of Greek mythology. “Ode to Psyche” and “Ode to
Autumn” are two of the odes belonging to this series of poems. Both these poems
are similar in Keats’ use of mythology in them, though in different forms.
"Ode to Psyche" is a 67-line poem written
in stanzas of varying length, is written to a Grecian mythological character,
displaying a great influence of Classical culture. The mythological elements in
this poem are more prominent as compared to “Ode to Autumn” as the poem itself
centers on the mythological figure, Psyche, Cupid’s wife. This poem is an
explicit example of Keats’ use of classical myths in his poems. According to
this myth, Psyche was the youngest and most beautiful daughter of a certain
king and queen. Her beauty was such that her admirers went as far as prayer to
her and making her offerings, consequently ignoring the Greek Goddess of Love,
Aphrodite (or Venus, the name her Roman counterpart is known by). Venus thus
sends her son Cupid (or the Greek Eros) to make Psyche fall in love with a
hideous creature. However, Cupid accidently manages to prick himself with his
arrows and falls in love with Psyche. Meanwhile,
Psyche’s parents consult and Oracle who informs them that their daughter would
fall in love with a dangerous dragon-like creature. So, she is taken to a cliff
where the West Wind carries her away and deposits her on a meadow. She starts
living in the castle she sees there, where she is treated like a queen, and has
a husband who only visits her n the darkness of the night and whose face she is
yet to see. Sometime later, Psyche’s two sisters come to visit her. When she
came to know about her predicament, they advice her to light a lamp after her
husband has fallen asleep so that she can see his face as they truly believed
him to be a monster. When Psyche carried out the plan, instead of facing the
monster that she was expecting, she discovers that her husband is none other
than Cupid. In her surprise, she drops hot oil from her lamp onto Cupid, who
wakes up to the betrayal of his wife and leaves her. Later on, after much
wandering and many a difficult task where she had to prove herself, Psyche and
Cupid are finally reunited.
The poem, “Ode to Psyche” opens with Keats
proclaiming his wishes to be Psyche’s priest as she is the most beautiful but
least worshipped Goddess. She has neither any altar to her name with any
flowers, nor a choir to sing for her, or even a prophet praying upon her. Keats
says that he wishes to be her priest and would also build a shrine for her “in
some untrodden region of my mind”. With the help of the myth of Psyche, Keats
displays the Romantic idea of the power of the mind. He worships her and wants
to be her priest. He, however, does not want to build any physical temple for
her. Rather, he dedicates a special place in his mind for the admiration and
worship of Psyche’s unparalleled beauty. Interestingly, the term “psychology”
has its roots in the Greek word “psyche”, which translates to “mind” or “soul”,
and Keats’ rendering of the myth reinforces the power of one’s mental
capabilities to see beauty in the outer world.
“Ode to Autumn”, on the other hand, contains only
implicit hints at mythological allusions that can be grasped only by an
intelligent and curious reader. Held in regard as undoubtedly the most
beautiful poem by Keats, Keats’ use of subtle mythological allusions in this
poem shows a certain maturity in his writing style. Unlike in his poem, “Ode to
Psyche”, here the mythological elements are only present in the second stanza.
Keats personifies autumn as a female figure and draws an image of four women
engaged in different activities typical to autumn. Two o these images alludes
to myths. The first image is that of a woman “sitting careless on a granary
floor, / Thy hair soft lifted by the winnowing wind;” this image immediately
brings to the mind of a learned reader a painting of Psyche separating grains
on a granary floor as a part of a task that her mother-in-law Venus assigns her
to prove her worth. The second image is that of a woman “on a half-reaped
furrow sound asleep / Drows’d with the fume of poppies”. To the unsuspecting
reader, this is a picture of a woman reaping poppies who has fallen asleep by
the intoxicating effects of the flower. But a well-read person learned in the
study of myths will immediately invoke the myth of Ceres (Demeter) upon the
mention of poppies. Ceres is the Roman Goddess of Earth, harvest and fertility,
and is often worshipped with the poppy flower. According to the myth regarding
this, Demeter’s daughter, Persephone, was abducted by the God of the
Underworld, Hades (or Pluto). In her grief, Demeter was wandering when she came
across a peasant whose son was mortally ill. Demeter cured this sick boy with
poppies, and thus she is worshipped by offerings of poppies. In this poem,
Keats uses myths to invoke the active participation of the reader in discerning
the myths.
