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Introduction
The most striking feature of the style of Hyperion is the use of various poetic devices, all carrying a unifying force and thereby giving to the poem its structural firmness and integrity. Throughout the poem, Keats has kept a close watch upon its intensity and restraint, but at the same time Keats’s concern for the discipline and structural coherence of the poem has not been able to restrain the free play of Keats’s real poetic genius whereby the poem does not find anything wanting in connotative intensity and richness of imagery.
Blank Verse
Milton was the trend-setter for the style of Keats’s Hyperion. Actually Keats had started writing Hyperion keeping the image of Milton’s Paradise Lost before him. Keats wanted to give to his poem the epic-grandeur and stylistic perfection of Paradise Lost. Milton had established the unrhymed imbic pentameter or blank verse as the English epic measure. So Keats also decided to write his poem in blank verse. There is strength and severity in Keats’s style. The diction is short and often monosyllabic:
Milton had made a frequent use of broken lines. In the first ten lines of Paradise Lost only one is unbroken, but Keats, inspite of his preference for Miltonic medial full stops avoided making use of broken lines because in his opinion an excessive use of broken lines was in no way contributory towards poetic effects. In the first ten lines of Hyperion, we find six that are not broken. Same way Keats tried to. avoid Milton’s run-on-line. This gave to his lines, greater structural integrity. Keats directed all his poetic devices towards restraint of expression and discipline of structure, and in this sphere, Keats has shown tremendous success. Even without the God-gifted organ voice of Milton Keats has given to this poetic fragment of his, a style bearing the stamp of his perfection.
University Questions
Give a critical commentary on the style of Hyperion.
The style of Keats’s Hyperion gives reflections of Milton’s Paradise Lost. How far do you agree with the statement? Give reasons with textual references.
For the style of Keats’s Hyperion Milton was the trend setter, yet Keats deviated where he liked. Discuss.
With all his indebtedness to Milton, Keats marked the style of Hyperion with his own stamp. Elaborate the statement.