古典神話をめぐるキーツとハントの距離 : アリアドネー像の検証を中心に
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概要
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During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, which saw Greek revival, many of the Romantic poets chose the classical myths as the subject of their poetry. John Keats wrote mythological poems: 'I stood tip-toe upon a little hill', Endymion, 'Hyperion: A Fragment' and several sonnets. Leigh Hunt, Keats's influential mentor, also wrote mythological narrative poems: 'Hero and Leander', 'Bacchus and Ariadne' and 'The Nymphs'. However, the poems of Keats, who was Hunt's protege, as well as Hunt's, were harshly censured by conservative reviewers. For these poems were full of excessive sexuality, immorality, a subversive attitude, and lack of classical education. It is true that Hunt inspired Keats's adoption of Greek myths as the main subject of his poetry. This was pointed out by not only conservative reviewers of Keats's time, but also modern critics. Above all, Jeffery N. Cox states that Keats, whose innate inclination for "the Greek spirit, -the Religion of the Beautiful, the Religion of Joy" continues to express his belief in eternal love and perpetual erotic excitement, like Hunt, even in the time of writing 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'. Certainly, as Keats proclaims in 'To Leigh Hunt, Esq.', he will offer poems that satisfy the demand for ancient Greek nostalgia, Keats's attraction to Greek mythology in the Humean and Gibbonesque mode is guided by Hunt celebrating Greek mythology's cheerfulness. Keats, however, in Endymion appears to take a different stance from that of Hunt, for their mythological characters show a great gap between the two poets. Little is known about Hunt's 'Bacchus and Ariadne', but this poem especially serves to disclose Hunt's attitude towards classical myth as well as his ideas on it. In order to confirm Keats's distance from Hunt, I consider the following three points. First, I analyze Gaius Valerius Catullus's 'On the Nuptials of Peleus, and Thetis', from which Hunt learns several motifs and imagery of Ariadne and Theseus. Then I explore Hunt's voluptuous love, which was severely censured by conservative reviewers. Finally, I compare the treatments of women's sorrow in 'Bacchus and Ariadne' by Hunt and in Endymion and 'Ode to a Nightingale' by Keats.
- 2012-03-20