Reading Lamia for the first time here, thank you for the introduction. And struck mostly by how young the author sounds! I mean even if you didn’t know who was writing, I think the mash-ups, the breathless drama, the euphemisms and yep, ‘blushing’ give a strong impression of a heightened sexuality that I associate with youth. Interested to see where this goes. Was not expecting Lamia to be a quelling presence, so that’s intriguing given the lusty opening…
Yes, he's so young! It's very interesting to me rereading this in my forties - when I first read it I was a dreamy, romantic, sexually frustrated teenager and this all hit very different...
I’d read several of the famous Keats poems and really enjoyed them but didn’t know where to go next (and was slightly put off by Endymion bar the nice extract they had for a while on the Tube). I didn’t know Lamia and loved this first post!
This phrase in particular stood out:
“There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice,
Such as once heard, in gentle heart, destroys
All pain but pity”
This last “destroys all pain but pity” feels like such an improvement on just “creates such pity” (or more likely “begets/instills/imbues such pity”) in giving a specific description of the movement of emotion, similar to the detail you’d expect in describing some physical change. A lot of what I enjoy in Keats might be this moody but precise description of emotion (Ode to a Nightingale being pretty much wall-to-wall this). It also feels very Shakespearean to me, though I can’t think of an example and that might just be vibes haha.
Thanks so much for being my first subscriber to comment on here! You're right, that's such a good line - it's such a subtle difference, but it's not just that Lamia's voice creates pity, it creates enough pity to replace or override the listener's SELF-pity. It makes me think of a lot of contemporary elections - people would say that they feel sorry for those who've lost their homes to climate change / Palestinian children / those using foodbanks etc etc, but not ENOUGH that when it comes to voting it overrides their self-pity and instinct to look after (they think) themselves...
'The movement of emotion' is such a good way of describing what Keats is so good at too. There's sometimes a bit too much blushing, but that's part of him describing emotion as something physical that spreads and retreats within the body...
Maybe Keats hung about with a lot of people who blushed!
Thank you for the great post and the kind response here. I’m interested in that point about pity - the narrator in this poem does seem to have his self-pity overridden, but still in a sort of indulgent way (like he’s eating custard so good he forgets he exists). I haven’t read ahead so might be getting misled by this opening. I’m also not very well-read in Keats generally, but I can’t imagine him writing much that didn’t feel immediate and personal - I can’t imagine him writing a great social work. He was so young and busy blushing!
Reading Lamia for the first time here, thank you for the introduction. And struck mostly by how young the author sounds! I mean even if you didn’t know who was writing, I think the mash-ups, the breathless drama, the euphemisms and yep, ‘blushing’ give a strong impression of a heightened sexuality that I associate with youth. Interested to see where this goes. Was not expecting Lamia to be a quelling presence, so that’s intriguing given the lusty opening…
Yes, he's so young! It's very interesting to me rereading this in my forties - when I first read it I was a dreamy, romantic, sexually frustrated teenager and this all hit very different...
I’d read several of the famous Keats poems and really enjoyed them but didn’t know where to go next (and was slightly put off by Endymion bar the nice extract they had for a while on the Tube). I didn’t know Lamia and loved this first post!
This phrase in particular stood out:
“There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice,
Such as once heard, in gentle heart, destroys
All pain but pity”
This last “destroys all pain but pity” feels like such an improvement on just “creates such pity” (or more likely “begets/instills/imbues such pity”) in giving a specific description of the movement of emotion, similar to the detail you’d expect in describing some physical change. A lot of what I enjoy in Keats might be this moody but precise description of emotion (Ode to a Nightingale being pretty much wall-to-wall this). It also feels very Shakespearean to me, though I can’t think of an example and that might just be vibes haha.
Thanks so much for being my first subscriber to comment on here! You're right, that's such a good line - it's such a subtle difference, but it's not just that Lamia's voice creates pity, it creates enough pity to replace or override the listener's SELF-pity. It makes me think of a lot of contemporary elections - people would say that they feel sorry for those who've lost their homes to climate change / Palestinian children / those using foodbanks etc etc, but not ENOUGH that when it comes to voting it overrides their self-pity and instinct to look after (they think) themselves...
'The movement of emotion' is such a good way of describing what Keats is so good at too. There's sometimes a bit too much blushing, but that's part of him describing emotion as something physical that spreads and retreats within the body...
Maybe Keats hung about with a lot of people who blushed!
Thank you for the great post and the kind response here. I’m interested in that point about pity - the narrator in this poem does seem to have his self-pity overridden, but still in a sort of indulgent way (like he’s eating custard so good he forgets he exists). I haven’t read ahead so might be getting misled by this opening. I’m also not very well-read in Keats generally, but I can’t imagine him writing much that didn’t feel immediate and personal - I can’t imagine him writing a great social work. He was so young and busy blushing!