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24 December 2009
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John Keats - The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream, published 1857 (written 1819)

This is a self-questioning poem from Keats which confronts the issue of the poet's value to society.

The poet first eats "deliciously" in a garden of delight, symbolic of the pleasures of poetic imagination. But it is also a place of unreality, "cloudy swoon", and slumber.

Awareness must come of the enormity, oppression of human suffering, in healing of which he hopes he is a "physician", pouring out a "balm upon the world". (Keats first chose medicine before committing himself to poetry).

But this in the end is perceived as a duty rather than a realised actuality, the poet's responsibility to acknowledge suffering humanity.

Listen to Keats' poetry



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