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RILEY, O.P., Sister Maria A., 1933-
JOHN KEATS, LITURGIST OF THE POETIC ACT: AN
ANALYSIS OF KEATS'S USE OF RELIGIOUS IMAGER/ AND
PHRASEOLOGY AS A VEHICLE FOR HIS POETIC THEORY.
The Florida State University, Ph.D., 1971
Language and Literature, modem
Please Note: Name also appears as Helen
Virginia Riley.
University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
I
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
JOHN KEATS, LITURGIST OF THE POETIC ACT:
AN ANALYSIS OF KEATS'S USE OF
RELIGIOUS IMAGERY AND PHRASEOLOGY
AS A VEHICLE FOR HIS POETIC THEORY
By
SISTER MARIA A. RILEY, 0. P.
A Dissertation submitted to
the Department of English
In partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Approved:
Professor dlooting, Dissertation
-A' Y
fry
**i
June* 1971
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PU5ASB HOTS:
Some pages have Indistinct
print. Filmed •• received.
UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
lb the many people who have supported, encouraged,
and sustained me during the years of my advanced study, I
am humbly grateful. First, I thank my parents for their
constant, if prejudiced, estimate of my academlo abilities.
I also wish to acknowledge the congregation of the Sisters
of St. Dominic of Adrian, Miohlgan, especially Sister Hosemary
Ferguson and sister Helen Ann Duggan, for affording me the
time and opportunity for advanced study, lb the sisters I
have lived and worked with during these years, I offer con
tinuing gratitude for their patience, understanding, and
encouragement.
To Dr. George Harper and the faculty and staff of
the English Department, I extend my sincere appreciation for
their interest, direotlon, and instruction. I also recognize
my debt to the many graduate students who have shared the
heights and the depths of graduate work with me.
In particular X am grateful to Dr. George Yost, Jr.
for his continuing interest, patience, and advloe during the
years of my work at Florida State University. His enthu
siasm for scholarship and his personal willingness to help
students has always been an inspiration to me.
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Ill
Dr. Sarah Herndon has been a loyal friend and advisor
to me for many years. I am grateful to Dr. Herndon not only
for her professional and aoademlo advice but also for her
warm and constant Interest in me as well as In my work.
Dr. Francis Townsend Is and will remain my Idea of
the great professor In the grand tradition of the field of
English. His knowledge Is broadly liberal and technically
precise. He oomblnes the enduring qualities of a truly
liberal eduoatlon, and he balanoes them with humor and hu
manity.
I wish to thank Dr. Dana McKinnon for her interest
and encouragement throughout my association with her. I also
thank Dr. Walton Morris for reading and crltlzing my disser
tation; Mrs. £llen Bone for her advice on the format of the
paper; and the library staff for their oonslstent help In
my research. A special appreciation is extended to Mrs.
Katharine Jordan for her patient and exhausting work in typing
all the drafts of this manusorlpt. She has absorbed and eased
much of the final stress of this dissertation. May God con
tinue to bless the work of all who In any way have helped to
bring my work at the University to a suooessful completion.
May, 1971
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................. . ii
Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION.................................. 1
II. KEATS'S POETIC THEOHY........................... 9
III. RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS................................. 23
Time
Place
Deities
Spirits - Angelic and Demonlo
Religious People
Religious Actions and Attitudes
Generic and Specific Images
IV. "SLEEP AND POETRY"................................ 70
V. "ODE TO PSYCHE"................. 88
VI. "THE EVE OF ST. AQJES".......................... 103
VII, "TOE FALL OF HYPERION"............................ 119
VIII. CONCLUSION....................................... 135
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................1^5
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The volume of biographical, orltioal, philosophical,
and historioal writing on John Keats attests to the enduring
challenge the man and his works offer to soholars and en
thusiasts. After a brief survey of a variety of writers and
their estimates of Keats, Douglas Bush observes that "it oan
hardly be said that modern orltlolsm has reached even a pro
visional Judgment of Keats's poetical stature to whioh all
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students would subscribe.” This nagging realization that the
beauty and complexity of Keats's poetry has eluded any defini
tive estimate of his artistry lures soholars, critics, and, for
that matter, graduate students, to test their acumen against
his genius. The richness of the subject defies the right of
any single method of analysis— historical, biographical, or
critical— to deolare eminent domain over the works of the poet;
however, eaoh of these methods adds its special illumination to
the study of Keats. That "Judgment of Keats's poetloal stature
to whioh all students of Keats would subscribe" which Bush
suggests will only emerge from a synthesis of all possible
Insights.
1 "Keats and His Ideas," in English Hoaantlc Poets,
ed. M. H. Abrams (i960; rpt. New Yorktoxford University
Press, 1968), p. 327.
1
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2
With this conviction, I hegln yet another study of
Keats, not expecting to solve the mystery of the poet, but
only to add some insight into that mystery by studying his
writings through the prism of his Imagery, or more precisely,
through the prism of his religious imagery, the incidence of
Whioh is surprisingly high for a poet who disclaims organized
Christianity,^
Keats's use of religious phraseology is not limited to
the Christian tradition, George Yost observes that "through
out his career Keats used abundantly not only Christian but
other religious phraseology."3 In identifying these religious
elements, I have considered the term religious in its generio
sense to include the Judaeo-Chrlstian tradition, the ancient
pagan traditions, and the several Eastern traditions Keats
employs. By religious elements I mean any plaoe, action,
person, oonoept, attitude, or word generally associated with
the recognition of or belief in a deity. The rationale for
including the "faded hierarchy" of ancient Greece and Rome
o
Critics recognize Keats's habit of using religious
phraseology and imagery: v. Irene Chayes, "Dreamer, Poet, and
Poem in 'The Pall of Hyperion*," Phllologloal Quarterly (PQ).
46 (Oct, 1967), 504; Mario D *Avanzo. Keatsfs~Metaphors for
the Poetio Imagination (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press
196?)* P , 94; G. Wilson Knight, The Starlight Dome: Studies in
the Poetry of Vision (London: Oxford University Press, 1941),
p. 269; David Perkins, The Quest for Permanenoe: The Symbolism
of Wordsworth. Shelley, and Keats (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1959), p. 214; E. C. Pettet, On the Poetry
of Keats (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957)>
pp. 15&-159; and George Yost, "Keats's Early Religious Phrase
ology," studies in Philology (SP), 49 (July I962J, 579-591.
3 "Keats*s Early Religious Phraseology," 579*
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3
with the viable religious traditions of Keats's era— Judaism,
Christianity, and the Eastern traditions— lies In the poet's
use of suoh religious elements. For Keats, heaven and Elysium
are not speolflc places of eternal reward whose exlstenoe Is
verified by a religious creed, but they are Images, more or
less exact, whioh he employs to project his intuitive world.
For the purpose of this dissertation, It Is useless to argue
what kind of a heaven Keats believes In, or whether he actually
believes In the Idea of a heaven. For the poet, the word
heaven comes freighted with emotional and dootrlnal connotations,
connotations he employs without necessarily alluding to the
preolse denotative oontent of the word. Walter J. Bate's
categorical statement "that the poetry itself Is largely un-
touohed by any direct Interest in religion one way or another"^
supports this view. Religious phraseology, though extensively
used In his poems and letters, Is not an expression of Keats's
faith, but a vehicle for his thought; he ohooses a religious
expression, not because he adheres to any creed, but beoause the
expression oonveys through an Implicit analogy the validity of
the imaginative experience he Is attempting to convey. For
Keats, this validity does not arise from the essential authen
ticity of any religious creed, but from the authenticity of the
religious experience itself. Religion, in all its myriad forms,
is one of the great archetypal symbols for man's search for
truth. For Keats, poetry is a surrogate for religion. As he
* John Keats (1963; rpt, New York: Oxford University
Press, i960), p. 133,
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