Endymion
A Poetic Romance
by John Keats
Presented by the Online Stage
Endymion is the largest work by John Keats and was composed between April and November 1817. It was published in April 1818, and the initial critical reception was almost universally hostile.
The plot is built around the ancient Greek legend of Endymion, the young shepherd whose beauty was such that the goddess of the Moon entreated Zeus to cast him into a permanent sleep so that she could gaze on him without interruption. Keats expands this story into an epistle on beauty and love, and weaves into it elements from several other Greek legends. Due to the complexities of the plot, many readers have found the poem as a whole rather inaccessible, and have preferred to focus on the gems of poetic commentary for which it has become famous.
In his landmark biography of Keats, Sidney Colvin reviews both the inherent problems and the importance of Endymion thus:
It is not with simple matters of personification, of the putting of initial capitals to abstract qualities, that we have to deal, nor yet with any obvious and deliberately thought-out allegory, still less is it with one purposely made riddling and obscure, it is with a vital, subtly involved and passionately tentative spiritual parable, the parable of the experiences of the poetic soul in man seeking communion with the spirit of essential Beauty in the world, invented and related, in the still uncertain dawn of his powers, by one of the finest natural-born and intuitively gifted poets who ever lived. This is a thing which stands almost alone in literature, and however imperfectly executed is worth any closeness and continuity of attention we can give it.
Cast
Narrator – Eva Davis
Endymion – Mark Crowle-Groves
Priest – Peter Tucker
Alpheus – Peter Tucker
Elephant – Peter Tucker
Peona – Amanda Friday
Nymph – Amanda Friday
Cynthia – Elizabeth Klett
Glaucus – John Burlinson
Adonis – Tomas Peter
Arethusa – Cate Barratt
Mystery Woman – Elizabeth Klett
Venus – P.J.Morgan
Circe – Erin Louttit
Chorus – Leanne Yau
Voices – Leanne Yau
Seasons and Hours – Leanne Yau
Text prepared by Erin Louttit.
Cover design by Denis Daly.
Music
Excerpts from String Quintet in C Major by Franz Schubert.
A public domain recording issued by musopen.org.
This recording may be freely downloaded and distributed, as long as the Online Stage is credited as the author. It may not be used for commercial purposes or distributed in an edited or remixed form.
The Online Stage is collective of narrators and actors who have come together to present productions of classic dramatic works in audio format. For further information about The Online Stage or to explore our catalogue please visit:
http://www.onlinestage.org/
For listeners who are interested in exploring Keat’s masterpiece in greater depth the following texts by H. Clement Notcutt are recommended:
An Interpretation of Keats’ Endymion,
https://archive.org/details/interpretationof00notcuoft
The story of Glaucus in Keats's Endymion
https://archive.org/details/storyofglaucusin00notc
A free audio version of these texts is available through Librivox:
https://archive.org/details/interpretation_keatss_endymion_1711_librivox
