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John KeatsA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Psyche is portrayed as the underdog of the gods. After the speaker, aided by their creative imagination, stumbles upon Cupid and Psyche embracing on the grass, they become enamored of Psyche and her story. They believe that she, as a late arrival to the pantheon of Greek gods, has not received the honor to which she is due. This seems like a distressing oversight, an inadequate response to her status, since they declare her to be the “loveliest vision” (Line 24) of them all. She should not be neglected merely because she arrived late, when the hierarchy of gods and goddesses was already established.
Keats’s speaker devotes Stanza 2 entirely to a lament about the many ways in which Psyche was sold short. It is ironic, in their view, that even though she is the loveliest of the gods, none of the usual religious shrines were built for her, and she was offered none of the customary practices of worship. The speaker lists them exhaustively, in the final eight lines of the stanza—everything from temple, altar, and choir, to incense, grove, and oracle, and “pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming” (Line 35).
The speaker finds a remedy: They will be the prophet and priest that she never had.
By John Keats
Endymion
Endymion: A Poetic Romance
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La Belle Dame sans Merci
La Belle Dame sans Merci
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Meg Merrilies
Meg Merrilies
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Ode on a Grecian Urn
Ode on a Grecian Urn
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Ode on Melancholy
Ode on Melancholy
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Ode to a Nightingale
Ode to a Nightingale
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On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
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On Seeing the Elgin Marbles
On Seeing the Elgin Marbles
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The Eve of St. Agnes
The Eve of St. Agnes
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To Autumn
To Autumn
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When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be
When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be
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