Endymion is a long poem by John Keats, published in 1818. In four books of rhyming couplets, it retells the Greek myth of the shepherd prince Endymion, who falls in love with the moon goddess and searches for her across earth, sea and sky. It was Keats's first major work, and it was savagely reviewed.
The story
Endymion, a shepherd prince of Mount Latmos, has a vision of a goddess and falls into a lovesick melancholy. His sister Peona tries to comfort him, but he sets off on a quest to find the goddess again.
His journey takes him beneath the earth, under the sea and through the air. At the end he gives up his dream for a mortal woman, who turns out to be the moon goddess herself.
A young poet's test
Keats set himself the challenge of writing four thousand lines, as a trial of his invention. He worked on the poem through 1817, while still in his early twenties.
The poem is uneven and luxuriant, full of lush description, and Keats himself admitted its faults in a modest preface.
The reviews
The Quarterly Review and Blackwood's Magazine attacked the poem harshly, partly for political reasons, since Keats was linked to the radical journalist Leigh Hunt.
Shelley later claimed that the reviews had hastened Keats's death, a legend that Byron mocked but that long shaped the poet's image.
Anecdotes
The famous first line
The opening line of Endymion, about the lasting joy of beautiful things, became one of the most quoted lines in English poetry, often used far from its original context.
Snuffed out by an article
Byron joked in Don Juan that Keats's mind had been snuffed out by an article. The jibe kept the legend of the poet killed by his critics alive for decades.
Frequently asked questions
When was Endymion published?
In 1818.
Who is Endymion in Greek myth?
A beautiful shepherd loved by the moon goddess Selene, or Cynthia.
How long is the poem?
About four thousand lines, in four books.