Page:Keats, poems published in 1820 (Robertson, 1909).djvu/275

new age which had been inaugurated by the triumph of the Olympians, and, in particular, of Apollo the god of light and song.'

The central idea, then, of the poem is that the new age triumphs over the old by virtue of its acknowledged superiority—that intellectual supremacy makes physical force feel its power and yield. Dignity and moral conquest lies, for the conquered, in the capacity to recognize the truth and look upon the inevitable undismayed.

Keats broke the poem off because it was too 'Miltonic', and it is easy to see what he meant. Not only does the treatment of the subject recall that of Paradise Lost, the council of the fallen gods bearing special resemblance to that of the fallen angels in Book II of Milton's epic, but in its style and syntax the influence of Milton is everywhere apparent. If is to be seen in the restraint and concentration of the language, which is in marked contrast to the wordiness of Keats's early work, as well as in the constant use of classical constructions,^[1] Miltonic inversions^[2] and repetitions,^[3] and in occasional reminiscences of actual lines and phrases in Paradise Lost.^[4]

1. e.g. i. 56 Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a god
   ⁠i. 206 save what solemn tubes
   ⁠. . . . . gave
   ⁠ii. 70 that second war Not long delayed.
2. e.g. ii. 8 torrents hoarse⁠32 covert drear⁠i. 265 season due⁠286 plumes immense
3. e.g. i. 35 How beautiful . . . self⁠182 While sometimes . . . wondering men⁠ii. 116, 122 Such noise . . . pines.
4. e.g. ii. 79 No shape distinguishable.⁠Cf. Paradise Lost, ii. 667.
   ⁠i. 2 breath of morn.⁠Cf. Paradise Lost. iv. 641.