By Way of Being an Editorial

If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness,
Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fix the naked foot of Poesy:
Let us inspect the Lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
By ear industrious and attention meet;
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be found with garlands of her own.

-- John Keats, April 1819


Keats was twenty-four when he wrote this sonnet, dying of tuberculosis. We see him chafing at the bit, confined not only by time but also by convention. How can we help but wonder what would have happened to English poetry if the brilliant boy had lived? What innovations might he have proclaimed, how would he have worked to "let the Muse be free"?

He knew, of course, that Andromeda was chained as an offering to a jealous Aphrodite, that beauty seems unable to tolerate rival beauty, that Perseus freed the princess by blazing the hideous Gorgon's head at the monster lying in wait, turning the beast to stone. I wonder what Keats' musings meant in terms of the myth: he speaks of Midas, asks that we be no less misers than he, that we have a care for "sound and syllable" - but a warning is implicit in the injunction. Then he asks, if we have been both attentive and creative, why should we be jealous of the dead leaves of a poet's laurels mouldering on some antiquated crown? Keats points out that the Muse will have her way, regardless, that she will fashion new wreaths, that poetry can be reborn perpetually from the foam, perpetually translated into new forms, provided we impose none of the old restraints, which may turn what they touch to gold, but leave it lifeless. So, too, the Gorgon's head was capable of turning terror and beauty without discrimination to stone. The suggestion is that rival beauty, though divine, is monstrous when jealousy reigns, and the envious will be left behind. Also, that poetry is a transforming instrument, whose life depends on the way in which it is played.

In the same vein, the translator who is both bold and true in heart, should be no Gorgon intent on transmuting loveliness to stone, but a Seeker after the inner truth of the original, listening to its Muse, and, we might say, performing it anew.