Page 8 - GALIET Memory and Poiesis: On Apollo's Wings IV

Stylistically and thematically, Keats’s second poem, The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream1 appears to function as an extension of Hyperion: A Fragment.2 Though in style the second poem adds a long prologue and a Muse, as Moneta, in both, the crowning themes of Apollo’s and the Poet’s ascensions and the deposition of the Titans do interweave into one.
Hyperion: A Fragment highlights the fall of the Titans (Hyperion and Saturn) and the natural succession by Apollo and the Olympians led by Jove. Although the first poem does not hesitate to narrate the existential despair of the Titans’ imprisonment while awaiting Hyperion’s resistance, the poem’s perspective shifts and evolves towards a majestic treatise on a new aesthetics pregnant with change and rebirth. These elements return to The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream in the form of a nostalgic remembrance, a memory that death cannot end.
In The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream, the poet beholds a dream vision of a golden-age feast, the fall of Saturn and his own rebirth before a debate with Mnemosyne on the essence of poetry, visionary journeys and the poet’s duty in the world
1 Keats, John and Shelley, Percy. Complete Poetical Works. The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream. New York: The Modern Library, 1925. 1090-1095
2 Keats, John and Shelley, Percy. Complete Poetical Works. Hyperion: A Fragment.New York: The Modern Library, 1925. 1060-1068
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