Endymion: A Poetic Romance

“Hymn to Apollo” by John Keats (1815)

This poem by Keats focuses on the Greek god Apollo, who appears in Endymion. Both works mention him as the charioteer of the sun, as an archer, and as a musician. However, “Hymn to Apollo” is a short lyric poem—a very different style than the long epic romance Endymion.

“Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats (1815)

The nightingale briefly appears in Endymion, near the end of the poem. Endymion tells his sister, “the nightingale, upperched high, / And cloister'd among cool and bunched leaves– / She sings but to her love, nor e'er conceives / How tiptoe Night holds back her dark-grey hood” (Lines 829-832). In Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale,” the bird takes center stage. This poem includes other elements that appear in Endymion, such as the “Queen-Moon,” dryads, and the sea. It is longer than Keats’s “Hymn to Apollo,” but far shorter than Endymion.

“Lycidas” by John Milton (1637)

“Lycidas” is a pastoral elegy, a poem that memorializes a subject using the idiom and imagery of classical pastoral works. John Milton, one of the most influential English poets and originator of the English epic with Paradise Lost, would have a large impact on Keats through his work.