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John KeatsA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
In Endymion, Keats explores several different kinds of dreams—daydreams and average dreams during sleep, as well as more profound visions and hope. The shepherds and their community discuss their dreams of Elysium (heaven) after the ritual to Pan. They “wander’d, by divine converse, / Into Elysium; viewing to rehearse / Each one his own anticipated bliss” (Lines 371-73). These dreams are spoken aloud while the dreamers are awake during the day, and feature members of the community who have died. These dreams, or wishes for the future, keep the dead in the lives of their loved ones and offer a sense of togetherness. In other words, Pan’s worshipers bond over discussing their dreams of the afterlife.
However, Endymion does not share his dreams with the others. Before he enters his trance, others guess that his mind is full of these daydreams. As he travels to the ritual, he seems to “common lookers on, like one who dreamed / Of idleness in groves Elysian” (Lines 167-77). This marks daydreams about the afterlife as common, something that is associated with a gentle smile and far-away gaze. The reader later learns that Endymion is actually pining away over a very different kind of dream—the vision of his beloved, the moon goddess.
His profound vision is part of Endymion and Peona’s debate about the nature of dreams. Peona insists on the fleeting and insubstantial nature of dreams that occur during sleep. She says, “Morphean fount / Of that fine element that visions, dreams, / And fitful whims of sleep are made of” (Lines 748-50). Dreams are made of a fine or thin material and are whimsical, rather than serious. She also refers to them as “light” (Line 755), as in having little weight, as well as “slight” (Line 756), meaning miniscule. This causes her to initially shun Endymion for allowing his dreams to dramatically affect his waking life. She believes that humans should not change their behaviors and attitudes based on regular dreams that occur during sleep.
Peona’s opinion aligns with how the speaker describes regular dreams that occur during sleep. They are, at best, full of oxymorons (contrasts). The speaker describes dreams as, “O unconfin’d / Restraint! imprisoned liberty! great key” (Lines 455-56). This is one example of how Keats uses oxymorons, or paradoxes, to explore things that are not easily understood. This is part of his concept of Negative Capability—dreams reflect the irrational nature of the unconscious mind. One should accept their contradictory state as their nature. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics adds that Keats “uses [oxymorons] to express the paradoxes of man’s sensuous experience” (988).
However, Endymion insists that his vision of the moon goddess is beyond a normal dream—it is of a higher, more divine, nature. He says, “Yet it was but a dream: yet such a dream” (Line 574). He admits that it happened while he was asleep, but it is far beyond other dreams he has experienced. The dream takes on a magical quality, one that transforms the world around him after he wakes. There are levels in his dream. “Dream within dream!” (Line 633) is interjected after his long blazon (description) of the moon goddess. This nested dream seems to refer most directly to the images in the goddess’s scarf (eyes and flowers) that come before the exclamation. Furthermore, he falls asleep within his “sweet dream” (Line 677). Endymion asks, “Why did I dream that sleep o’er-power’d me” (Line 672). The vision ends, replaced by a normal dream of sleeping, one that seems discordant with the more spectacular vision of the moon goddess.
Endymion argues that his vision is supported by events that occur while he is waking. On other days, he sees the goddess’s face in a well and hears her voice in a grotto. These moments give him a “hope beyond the shadow of a dream” (Line 858). This is the final type of dream in the poem—the waking dream of hope. Hope stands out from the shepherd community’s daydreams about the afterlife. Endymion calls his waking pursuit of his beloved moon a “higher hope” (Line 775), one that differs from the usual dreams, like those of reuniting with loved ones in the afterlife. He must ignore the “flame of hope that plays / Where’er I look” (Line 985) to engage in earthly pursuits. To improve his attitude and become a more productive member of society, Endymion has to turn away from the hope—the dream—of his moon goddess.
In Endymion (as in all of Keats’s writing), beauty plays an important thematic role. From the first line—the most famous line—“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever” (Line 1), beauty is at the heart of the poem. Creating something beautiful is why Keats has chosen to retell the myth of Endymion. He, as the speaker, states that “Some shape of beauty moves away the pall / From our dark spirits” (Lines 12-13). Beautiful things brighten our spirit. This is not only about our mood, or temperament, but also about connection between people, or love. Beauty inspires love, and Endymion believes love is necessary for life.
Endymion falls in love with the moon goddess because of her beauty, and this love changes his temperament and his life. She has “locks bright enough to make me mad” (Line 613), he says. While being with her, witnessing her beauty, is a state of joy, being apart from her causes Endymion to feel pain and sorrow. He is ecstatic when in her “wooing arms” (Line 654). Separated from her, Endymion changes. Peona tells him that something “weigh[s] down thy nature” (Line 508). These extremes of love are part of the medieval romances, as well as the romantic epics written in the English renaissance, that inspire Keats. For instance, in Line 134, Keats mentions Chaucer, whose character Troilus pines away for his beloved Criseyde when they are apart in an extreme manner. Troilus’s passion can be compared to Endymion’s passion.
Love, in Endymion, is not only about seeing the beloved’s beauty, but it’s also about physically feeling that beauty. Endymion and the moon goddess descend to a flower bed on a mountainside and experience “newest joys upon that alp” (Line 666). The joy here is physically appreciating each other’s beauty. This moment can be compared to the community of shepherds, who are the ancestors of Spartans, making love after the ritual to Pan. They are “potent to send / A young mind from its bodily tenement” (Lines 324-25), which is a poetic way of describing sex. The power of love increases with kisses and embraces. Connection between people is as important as creating children in physical love.
Endymion describes love as the most important thing in the world. He describes the “orbed drop / Of light, and that is love” (Lines 807-08). Lovers, “melting into its radiance, we blend” (Line 811). These lines emphasize that love is a blending, and the experience of blending into a beloved is illumination. Light and love are connected with the divine, the afterlife, and immortality. Endymion mentions “love’s elysium” (Line 824) or, in other words, the heaven of love. He tells Peona that “earthly love has power to make / Men’s being mortal, immortal” (Lines 844-45). This is how he justifies chasing after his vision of the goddess when Peona questions his actions and temperament. The importance of love’s role on earth cannot be fully understood by humans, Endymion argues. He says, the “mere commingling of passionate breath, / Produce more than our searching witnesseth: / What I know not” (Lines 834-36). Then, he goes on to say that life—such as the blossoming of flowers and making music—depends on love.
However, Endymion vows to put aside his search for his beloved moon goddess for the love of his sister. Love remains important, but it is a familial love that inspires Endymion to try to behave as he did before his vision. He feels her “enduring love” (Line 466) and “sisterly affection” (Line 473) in the bower. This love causes him to ignore his vision of the moon and forgo his hopes of being with the goddess in order to lead his community in the way that he has in the past.
By John Keats