Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen! Today the whole post'll be written in English, 'cos I've missed my Language Practice-lesson (I had several serious reasons to do so) and I think a little practice wouldn't be bad... And, as a more important reason, I really want to show you, why I wasn't able to post anything after the Justine-critic - except Breton's Poisson Soluble yesterday.

I think I've mentioned on Saturday that I had to write a five-pages-long essay for my Introduction to Literature seminar, so I've been writing it on Saturday, on Sunday, on Monday and yesterday. =D However, I went to watch another play in Örkény Theatre on Friday (Tóték, actually) then I watched Anna Karenina in Bárka Theatre on Tuesday, and even though both of them were frenetic and fantastic, I couldn't write a single word about them - one reason is that I wrote about Justine, the other is I really wanted to finish my essay. x'D

But I managed to finish it before the deadline, which was today's lesson at 8:30 in the morning, and I was really proud of myself. (Just as usual.^w^) However, I wasn't really proud, when I fled out from Building R, where I would have my Language Practice lesson, 'cos I would had to write a ZH, and also would had to present a book-review, but I couldn't study and couldn't do anything except writing that frickin' essay. -.-" Instead of attending on my lesson, I went to the library, and started to copy Keats' poem. (I feel like a monk, actually...)

BTW, I couldn't finish copying, 'cos I was really tired, and the only thing I wanted to do was to lie in my bed and sleep. (I did so when I got home - I was sleeping from two o'clock to seven o'clock, but I don't feel myself more relaxed. x'D)

Soooo, why I'm here now is not because of these all together, but because I want to show off what did I write as an essay~ Before I do that, HERE is a link to the poem, which I used as a topic - beware, it's in English, and yeah, it is written in the 19th century's English, so it may be a "little bit" hard to read. (After the first part I was tired as hell, though I can understand English well... Or at least, I thought I can understand, but nowadays I have some doubts about it... x'D)

And here is the essay~

John Keats – Lamia
The Beast who became the Beauty

Lamia is not one of John Keats’ well-known works, however, the narrative poem surely deserves as much attention as other pieces of his poetry, especially the heroine Lamia, whose character appears in several legends of the acient Greek mythology. This essay is written in the purpose to compare and explain the differences and overlaps between the original and Keats’ Lamia.

Before that, there are some facts, which should be mentioned ere going deeper into the poem’s mythological sources. To start with, Lamia was written in 1819, which date is said to be in the poet’s most brilliant period – a period, when the effects of the acient Greek legends are discoverable in his poetry. For example, the famous poem Ode to a Grecian Urn was also written in 1819. Furthermore, two other narrative poems, which also elaborate acient Greek myths, entitled Endymion (1818) and Hyperion (1819) were written in the same period too. Not but that Keats’ did not write other poems based on acient Greek legends, but „in Keats’ first volume, the Greek element is slight, and is completely overshadowed by pseudo-medievalism.”[1] (Thus, this is not only a personal phenomenon: the tendency of the infiltration of Greek elements' into art is noticeable in that period in Keats’ contemporaries’ work too.) This is also a reason why criticism can not skip the research of the original myths of Lamia.

However, the poet himself stated that he came across Lamia’s story "by a passage in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy[2] which he has extracted at the end of it. […] Burton's relation is itself an improvement on the account in Philostratus. The old book-fighter with melancholy thoughts is speaking of the seductions of phantasmata."[3] Now with this information researchers are directly led to a concrete source, in which they can find the following quote and description: "Philostratus in his fourth book De vita Apollonii, hath a memorable instance in this kind, which I may not omit, of one Menippus Lycius, a young man twenty-five years of age, that going between Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a phantasm in the habit of a fair gentlewoman, which taking him by the hand, carried him home to her house in the suburbs of Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if he would tarry with her, „he should hear her sing and play, and drink such wine as never any drank, and no man should molest him; but she being fair and lovely would live and die with him, that was fair and lovely to behold.” The young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able to moderate his passions, though not this of love, tarried with her awhile to his great content, and at last married her, to whose wedding, amongst other guests, came Apollonius, who, by some probable conjectures, found her out to be a serpent, a lamia, and that all her furniture was like Tantalus's gold described by Homer, no substance, but mere illusions. When she saw herself descried, she wept, and desired Apollonius to be silent, but he would not be moved, and thereupon she, plate, house, and all that was in it, vanished in an instant: „many thousands took notice of this fact, for it was done in the midst of Greece.”[4] This is a brief summary of the part of Philostratus’ work, in which he tells the stories and miracles of Apollonius of Tyana, here especially his encounter with Lamia.[5]

It is clear that Keats got the idea of the story from Burton’s work, since it was told by himself, however, this myth is not the only one which is related to Lamia’s character, therefore this legend could not be the only source of Keats’ poem. Beside the story of Lamia Korinthia[6], there are three other legends (three other types of Lamia) in the Greek mythology related to her. Maybe the most common is the story of Lamia Libys: she was a beautiful Queen of Libya, and she was loved by Zeus. However, Hera realised their relationship, so the goddess stole Lamia’s children in revenge. This made Lamia go insane, and she started to steal and kill others’ children, therefore she was transformed into a demon[7]. Also there is a myth about Lamia Philinnion, who "was an unwed maiden who died prematurely and returned from the tomb as a living dead to consort with a handsome youth named Makhates, a guest in her parents home. When her mother discovered the girl she collapsed back into death and was burned by the terrified townsfolk beyond the town boundaries.”[8] Last, but not least, in the Greek mythology the name "Lamia” or "Lamiae” (used as a common noun) refers to female demons, who can change their shape into a beautiful woman to seduce young men, then suck out their blood and eat their flesh. (These are the ones who appear in Goethe’s Faust.) Maybe there are more legends and stories related to Lamia, but these are the most known – and most connected to Lamia’s character in Keats’ poem.

To list up the myths above was an important point of this essay, because with these sources we can see the general characteristics of the ”original” Lamia, and at last, after the long introduction, we are able to start contrasting her figure to Keats’ heroine. At first, each of the legends shows the main character as a fair and delightful creature, even though her beauty is nothing but mere illusion, (especially in the case of Lamiae,) but we can notice this feature in the story of Lamia Korinthia and Lamia Philinnion too. Nevertheless, the legend of Lamia Libya is specific, because there Lamia is said to be beautiful at first, then become to a monster, not vice versa. That is why we might pay less attention to this legend than the others, and the following comparison would concentrate mainly on the story of Lamia Korinthia, since her legend was mentioned as the main source of the poem.

The next aspect of the comparison is Lamia’s origin. In the myth, according to Philostratus’ description, she was a ghost, a demon generally, she only put on a human form. Compared to this, in the poem we can read that she once was a human and then became a half-human half-serpent creature:

"I was a woman, let me have once more
A woman's shape, and charming as before.”

However, neither she nor the narrator does tell how and why exactly was she transformed into this form, and so she seems to be a quite mysterious and incomprehensible character. We can not miss the fact that she does not tell even her name to Lycius, when he asks:

"Sure some sweet name thou hast, though, by my truth,
I have not ask'd it, ever thinking thee
Not mortal, but of heavenly progeny,
As still I do. Hast any mortal name,
Fit appellation for this dazzling frame?”

But Lamia does not give a concrete answer and then she pretends to be asleep. So the reader also can not get further knowledge about her, except for some, which are necessary.

The second point is Lamia’s serpent-form. In the legend, not only in Philostratus’ work but in all myths, her real form is ugly, disgusting and frightful. Compared to this, Keats gives the reader a description about Lamia like this:

"She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd;
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolv'd, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries -
So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries,
She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf,
Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self.
Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire
Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne's tiar:
Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!
She had a woman's mouth with all its pearls complete:”

Even though the text also describes a somehow frightening sight while it compares Lamia to a demon, but the serpent-body is painted as something like a gemstone. She is described with stunning and expressive colours and words, so the reader may feel this creature is something dreadfully delightful, but not ugly.

However, Lamia’s serpent-form can be obscured in another aspect, which is highly related to the Biblical symbols. Serpents and snakes in literary works nearly always have this symbolical meaning related to temptation and seduction, such as in this case, and being aware of the mythological background, this is evident. Furthermore, in the poem, Lamia also seduces Lycius consciously:

"The cruel lady, without any show
Of sorrow for her tender favourite's woe,
But rather, if her eyes could brighter be,
With brighter eyes and slow amenity,
Put her new lips to his, and gave afresh
The life she had so tangled in her mesh:
And as he from one trance was wakening
Into another, she began to sing”

At this point, it would seem logical that Keats’ Lamia has the same habit as the original one, viz. seducing young men to drink up their blood and eat their flesh, however, here Lamia does not has this will at all. It seems that she is truly in love with Lycius, and wants to live her life with him.

If we could say that Lamia Korinthia was a kind of evil character, then Keats’ Lamia is totally innocent. Because her love to Lycius seems to be honest, she even goes trough a painful metamorphosis just to be able to meet him, however, this becomes pointless in the end. When Apollonius shouts out her name, and discloses her true identity, she fades away, and Lycius also dies in the shock of the realisation that his love was only a demon. This creates the feeling of catharsis, and we can feel sorry for Lamia, who is more like a victim in the end.

After all, the poem’s main point is the impossibility of love between a human and a not worldy creature, of a creature of fantasy. (This, actually, is a popular topic of romantic literature. The Hungarian poet Vörösmarty’s play Csongor és Tünde is also based on this thought, and to mention a more similar story, Hoffmann’s Der Goldene Topf elaborates this topic too.)

To sum up, through the comparison we could see how Lamia’s character have changed from a demonic creature to an innocent, amourus heroine by the poet in the purpose to create a character who is more suitable for romanticism.