As Charles Mahoney writes in the recent collection of essays John Keats in Context, critics have long since recognized the importance of Keats’s speculation on imagination towards the larger idea of Romanticism. For Mahoney, Keats places the real and the ideal in direct conflict with each other. He states that the imagination in Keats’s writing is best understood in terms of its conflicted relationship to the real, “whether understood as the natural world or as the human world of pain and agony” (Mahoney 168). He goes even further by saying that the conflict suggests there is no single understanding of Keats’s imagination. He is correct in identifying the conflict between the real and the ideal in Keats’s works, but he fails to analyze the poetic effect of the conflict itself. As Mahoney focuses on the internal tensions pervading Keats’s work, he is not able to bring the real and the ideal together in an effort to start a new dialogue about Keats’s notions of beauty and truth, but instead leaves this line of questioning unexplored whilst ending with an image of Keats as a poet unsure of his own views of truth. In this paper I want to further develop Mahoney’s argument by exploring the effect of the tension between the real and the ideal in Hyperion, A Fragment, whilst also delving into Keats’s possible motivations for creating this divide. By prioritizing the importance of aesthetics as a means of reaching ultimate truths, Keats would use ambiguity to combine rather than separate the two opposing forces of the real and the ideal in an effort to pursue a type of doubtful knowledge that would serve to propel the later Romantic movement away from the disillusionment of recent historical upheavals.

In his letter to Benjamin Bailey dated November 22^nd of 1817, Keats gives his own opinions on the power of imagination as he states, “I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart’s affections, and the truth of Imagination. What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth” (Keats, Letters 41). This idea of the imagination, which Coleridge has emphasized as being a key factor in Romantic writing, was something that Keats grappled with to an extent far exceeding that of the other writers of the age of Romanticism. Keats saw the imagination as the key to unlocking the secrets of the world, that once we are able to harness the power of the imagination, we will be able to make it a reality. In his letter he goes on to say “The Imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream,—he awoke and found it truth:—I am more zealous in this affair, because I have never yet been able to perceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning—and yet it must be” (42). Thinking about the imagination as a creative force helps us understand the reasoning behind Keats’s focus on aesthetics within his writing. The Imagination with a capital “I” becomes not only a means towards obtaining ultimate truths, but a direct method for creating them. However, in a letter written months after, Keats subverts this focus on the imagination as the culmination of true knowledge by emphasizing the problems with the escapist mentality that this results in.

Keats’ letter to John Hamilton Reynolds dated May 3^rd of 1818 marks an inflection point in which he compares human life to that of a mansion with many chambers. He describes the first as “the infant or thoughtless Chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think” (Keats, Letters 107). This is the state that Keats’ critics accused him of occupying, of belonging to the world of naïve, dreamlike existence that do not concern themselves with the burdens of reality. One must note, however, that the mansion analogy does not end with this first Chamber, for this is only the infant stage, a stage of naiveté that does not have any experience with the world as it is. This stage is observed in the second Chamber, categorized as one that is not easily met, for it is only once we heighten our intellectual abilities that we are able to step into what he calls “the Chamber of Maiden-Thought,” a chamber in which we breathe the breath of delight and wonder. Keats, nevertheless, brings forth a more stark version of reality as he continues: "However among the effects this breathing is father of is that tremendous one of sharpening one’s vision into the heart and nature of Man—of convincing one’s nerves that the world is full of Misery and Heartbreak, Pain, Sickness, and oppression—whereby this Chamber of Maiden Thought becomes gradually darkened, and at the same time, on all sides of it, many doors are set open—but all dark—all leading to dark passages—We see not the balance of good and evil—we are in a mist—we are now in that state—We feel the 'burden of the Mystery'" (Keats, Letters 107-8).

This passage demonstrates the sensible perception of reality that Keats possessed. He portrays the progression of human life and thought as involving a confrontation with the negative aspects of this world. It is not a matter of picking and choosing what you devote your energy towards, but rather of being able to see all of the pain and suffering in this world, a kind of perception that is necessary in order for humanity to be able to advance towards the final stage. Keats presents the culmination of these efforts, by stating that “there is something real in the World” and that we must all be willing to directly face this reality. Keats’ final chamber is an idealistic one, which he describes as “[The] Chamber of Life [that] shall be a lucky and a gentle one—stored with the wine of love—and the Bread of Friendship” (Keats, Letters 109). Here we see Keats capturing to the idealistic core of the later Romantic thinkers, that although this world is filled with suffering, the notion of a greater truth is worth pursuing, for it could lead to a better understanding of the world. However, as we look within the wording of that sentence, we see that this next stage of life is not one that he can see becoming established within his lifetime. This life is portrayed as a “lucky and a gentle one,” which does not connote an experience corresponding to life as we know it, but rather one of the life that revolutionaries envisioned. Keats’s concern is exemplified in his poem “Sleep and Poetry,” published in 1817 in which he says, “And can I ever bid these joys farewell? / Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life, / Where I may find the agonies, the strife / Of human hearts” (122-125). Thus, we see that Keats is not so much preoccupied with the “how” and “why” of reaching a transcendental, idealistic reality, but is rather more concerned with the painful reality of the here and now, a conflict which he further examines within his unfinished epic poem Hyperion.

Within Hyperion, Keats directs his focus onto the fallen Titans, rather than beginning with Apollo, the obvious choice for a Romantic hero. By shifting the narrative from one of triumph to one of anguish and defeat, Keats is better able to utilize his mode of aesthetics whilst delving deep into the recesses of worldly pain. From the title, we know that the story will be that of the great mythological Titans, and so are expecting a grand or epic setting. However, Keats disrupts our reveries and makes us encounter a world of pain within the first few lines, “Deep in the shady sadness of a vale / Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, / Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s one star, / Sat gray-hair’d Saturn, quiet as a stone, / Still as the silence round about his lair” (1.1-5). What is presented here is a direct subversion of the magical settings of myths. The vale now has a “shady sadness,” the healthy breath of the morning is now sunken, and it is within this language that we encounter the fallen Titan Saturn. The fact that it is Saturn who is shown to us first is a strategic move, as it expertly presents the plight of the Titans before showing us the last remaining Titan who has yet to fall, Hyperion. The way Keats represents Saturn is a testament to his own sympathies towards the plight of the fallen Titans. The language surrounding him is statuesque and weighty, as if the words were laced with dread and despair. He continues the characterization by describing Saturn’s general state, “Upon the sodden ground / His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, / Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; / While his bow’d head seem’d list’ning to the Earth, / His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.” (1.15-21) Not only is this Titan described as if made of stone, but his limbs look dead and his eyes, which used to look upon the splendors of his realm, are closed off. When Thea, Hyperion’s wife, joins Saturn in his absorption in defeat, Keats’s description becomes even more vivid: “One hand she press’d upon that aching spot / Where beats the human heart, as if just there, / Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain” (1.42-44). The fate of the Titans has become that of human beings, for they are also deposed of their status as rulers of the world. As a side-effect of their loss, they now have to feel pain as mortals feel it, a deep and crushing feeling that pervades the heart and, consequently, the world. Here Keats sympathizes with the plight of the Titans well before they reach the point of utter defeat, when Apollo has replaced Hyperion. One of the most heartbreaking moments is when Saturn seems to no longer recognize himself, and asks “Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?” (1.134). On the opposite end of Keats’s representation of the Titans’ grief stands Hyperion, who has yet to be defeated. Hyperion’s characterization is that of a powerful and mighty figure who all the while has the “omens drear / Fright and perplex” (1.169-170) that mortals do, thus having his fears bring him down to the level of human mortality. Keats’s confrontation with this pain and suffering becomes all the more potent when these fallen Titans reach the hiding place of the other Titans, and Keats has to grapple with this reality of a communal defeat.

Although us readers know that this story must end with Apollo’s victory over Hyperion, we are nevertheless drawn to the despairing Titans that have gathered together in Book II. As the Titans have been reduced to a sorrowful state, they are filled with questions much like mortals. We see Saturn try and find a greater meaning in their disposition as he ponders “Not in my own sad breast, / Which is its own great judge and searcher out, / Can I find reason why ye should be thus:…No, no-where can unriddle, though I search, / And pore on Nature’s universal scroll” (2.129-131, 150-1). Keats is working with similar questions to those of the Romantics as he voices the concerns over a meaningless existence, and he tries to solve it through the musings of Oceanus as he comes to reveal “the pain of truth, to whom ‘tis pain” (2.202). This very truth that should help ease the Titans’ despair is an affirmation of the cyclical nature of life, that “first in beauty should be first in might” (2.229). At first glance, this seems like a typical Keatsian response in terms of its focus on beauty as the end-all-be-all of life, an idealistic stance that tries to seem rooted in reality, but is truly an easy excuse for their current circumstance. Keats wants to convince himself that this is the way it ought to be, that transition is an aesthetic one; however, the ways in which he has represented the Titans’ strife and the methods he uses to represent Apollo shows us a different picture—one in which Keats remains unconvinced by this argument.

We reach a pivotal point within the fluctuations between the aesthetic, idealized world of beauty and the human world of pain and suffering within Book III, when we finally meet Apollo. This is a character who Keats could have easily given the divine, youthful, and energetic attributes that would be associated with the representative of the “first in beauty” but what we find is something completely different. Instead, we see Apollo in a sorrowful state, not unlike that of the Titans whom he had played a part in deposing. Here, he seeks aid from Mnemosyne, the Titan who has looked out for him, as he voices his fears of oblivion. A newly triumphant figure, Apollo feels distraught rather than elated as he frantically tries to uncover the hidden secrets of life from the Titan in a last-ditch attempt at conquering the world. It is important to note that a pivotal point in his own journey towards becoming a god comes at what he perceives as a discovery of the answers, “yet I can read / A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:/ Knowledge enormous makes a God of me…Creations and destroyings, all at once / Pour into the wide hollows of my brain, / And deify me, as if some blithe wine / Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk, / And so become immortal” (3.111-120). In contrast with the Titans, who were in despair over an outcome they could not understand, Apollo seems to have reached his full potential as he obtained the knowledge he had sought-after. However, this result is not the end, for his encounter with this knowledge comes with a price:

Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush / All the immortal fairness of his limbs; / Most like the struggle at the gate of death; / Or liker still to one who should take leave / Of pale immortal death, and with a pang / As hot as death’s is chill, with fierce convulse / Die into life: so young Apollo anguish’d: / His hair, his golden tresses famed / Kept undulation round his eager neck. / During the pain Mnemosyne upheld / Her arms as one who prophesied.—At length / Apollo shriek’d:--and lo! from all his limbs / Celestial Glory dawn’d: he was a god! (3.124-136)

Once Apollo reaches his full potential and becomes a god with all of the knowledge of the world, it has the opposite reaction within his own self from what the Romantics thought would take place. As Keats demonstrates the ascension of Apollo towards godlike immortality and knowledge, he represents this transition as one of pain and anguish, a reality that casts immortality as the equivalence of death. As we end the unfinished poem we see Apollo then shriek and become a god. This shriek represents the culmination of the godlike aesthetics of the imagination meeting the reality of human pain and suffering—a reality that cannot simply be ignored in the quest for ultimate knowledge about the world. As Keats explains in his description of the Chamber of Maiden-Thought, this is the moment Apollo sharpens his “vision into the heart and nature of Man”, and it is due to this realization that Keats would not have been able to bring this poem to its natural, nay Romantic end.

What makes this poem so interesting is also the reality of what could have been, would Keats have finished it; however, as we take into account his treatment of the Titans’ story as well as that of Apollo’s, we come to the realization that a swift conclusion would have undermined the entirety of his treatment of pain. A traditional romantic ending would have seen Apollo successfully transcend the agonies of his coming into his position as a god and by doing so, would have rendered all of the previous pain and suffering obsolete. What “Adam woke and found it truth” could not have worked in this scenario because there needed to be an actual working out from injustice and pain in order to reach higher truths. Transcendence in Hyperion could not happen because the pain and suffering did not allow it. Apollo’s shriek came out of the unexpected nature of the breadth of knowledge he received, and displayed the inquisitive nature of Keats’s dive into the real world of pain. His notion of aesthetics helped to portray the universality of the quest for knowledge, showing how it cannot escape even the most youthful and beauteous creatures amongst us. Contrary to popular belief, by utilizing aesthetics as a means towards obtaining truth Keats is not writing in any way that would seem contradictory to the greater motifs of his contemporaries, but is in fact further able to explore the realities of worldly pains and sorrows through a more introspective reimagining of Greek myths and legends.