A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever
John Keats
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast;
They always must be with us, or we die.
Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finish'd: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now, at once adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.
This guide explores the first stanzas of the English Romantic poet John Keats's book-length poem Endymion (1818). Beginning with words so famous that they've become proverbial—"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever"—Keats lays out his poetic philosophy. He declares that the beauties of nature and art offer humanity not just a brief holiday from the world's troubles, but lasting consolation, even reason to go on living. That, he explains, is why he's going to tell the lovely story of Endymion, the mythological Greek shepherd who fell in love with the goddess of the moon: to drink from "endless fountain" of beauty that sustains the world, and to try to add a drop to that fountain himself.
Summary
A beautiful thing gives endless joy. Its beauty only grows; it will never die; it will always make a safe place for us, where we can enjoy peaceful, healthy, quiet sleep. Thus, every morning, we make wreaths of flowers that keep us tied to this world—in spite of misery, in spite of the sad lack of great souls, in spite of bad days, in spite of all the dark, muddy paths we have to walk down in our lives. Yes, in spite of all that, some vision of beauty lifts the dark cloud away from our sad spirits. We see this beauty in the sun and the moon; in old trees and young saplings growing leaves to shade innocent sheep; in daffodils and their grassy world; in clear streams that make a cool, secret path for themselves through the hot summer; in clearings in the woods full of blooming musk-roses. We find beauty, too, in the great tales we tell of long-gone heroes, and in all the wonderful stories we've heard or read: they offer us an immortal spring of refreshing water, pouring down to us from the heavens.
And we don't just enjoy such beauties for a little while. No: just as we come to love the trees around a temple as much as we love the temple itself, we feel that the moon, the love of poetry, all these endless glories stay with us, shining a heartening light on our souls. They're so close to us that, whether we're in a time of sunshine or rain, we feel them always—or else, we die.
I'm thus full of happiness as I prepare to tell the story of Endymion. The lovely sound of his name is in my soul, and I can see the beautiful scenes of his story opening up before me, plain as the English valleys. I'll start writing now that I'm far away from all the city's noise and fuss; now that the first flowers are budding, making patterns of fresh color that wander through the old trees; now that the willow tree hangs delicate amber leaves down; now that the dairy pails overflow with more and more milk. As the year turns to lush, grassy summer, I'll quietly guide the little boat of my poem hour after hour down streams that pass through tunnels of green leaves. I hope to write many verses before the fresh daisies, with their red-rimmed white petals, are hidden in the grass—and before the bees are murmuring among the clover and sweetpeas, I should be about halfway through. I pray that my poem won't be half-finished when the frosty, stark winter comes: rather, may Autumn, with its grand gold colors, be around me when I finish writing. With that, like an adventurer, I send my first thought out into the wilderness as if it were a messenger. Let it blow its trumpet and make the unknown path ahead of me sprout with grasses so that I can go swiftly on, making my way through the greenery.
Themes
The Redemptive Power of Beauty
In its famous first line, Keats's Endymion makes a fervent statement of belief: "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." The opening stanzas of this long poem declare that, whether beauty appears in the face of the moon or in a poem, it offers humanity indestructible consolation, healing, and courage. In fact, the poem suggests, beauty might be the only thing that can give people the will to go on living in a disappointing, depressing, and imperfect world. To Keats, beauty isn't merely decorative or distracting, but life-sustaining.
Beauty, the poem’s speaker says, offers consolation and redemption when nothing else can. Those who experience beauty in the natural world ("the sun, the moon," "daffodils / With the green world they live in") or in art ("all lovely tales that we have heard or read") are forever changed by it. Beauty helps people to endure all the world's sufferings and disappointments; "spite of despondence" (that is, in spite of deep unhappiness), they can always return to the metaphorical leafy "bower" that beauty builds within them, a place that offers "sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing" when nothing else can.
Beauty, therefore, isn't a fleeting, flimsy pleasure that occupies “one short hour,” briefly entertaining people or distracting them from their troubles. Rather, a beautiful thing is an immortal "joy for ever," a permanent refuge whose "loveliness increases" in memory rather than fading away. Having once experienced a great beauty, in other words, people carry the feeling it gave them always. The experience of beauty thus "bind[s] us to the earth," keeping people dedicated to existence even as they walk down the "unhealthy and o'er-darkened" paths that make up so much of life's journey. There's nothing frivolous about loveliness: without beauty, the speaker soberly observes, "we die."
Nature, Creativity, and Poetry
The prologue to Keats's Endymion connects artistry to the natural world. Both art and nature, the speaker suggests, come alive in an organic, seasonal way, growing at their own speed and to their own innate rhythms. These first stanzas hint that poetry in particular should come (as Keats once put it) "as naturally as the leaves to a tree." Writing poetry, in other words, means tuning into deep-rooted instinct and letting one's art grow, not imposing some rigid idea on one's material.
As he begins his long poem, Keats imagines how his verses will progress through the seasons. He'll start in the spring "while the early budders are just new," write all through the summer as the grass "grows lush in juicy stalks," and (with any luck) finish up in autumn when a "tinge of sober gold" colors the landscape. These images suggest that the poem (and perhaps the poet) will grow and mature just as the natural world does, moving from bright, energetic, youthful freshness to a solemn but lovely maturity.
Poetry, then, is ideally something that grows according to its own innate pattern, as plants do. Keats pictures beginning his poem by sending out a "herald thought" (a messenger-idea), a figure whose "trumpet" makes greenery sprout underfoot, creating a gentle poetic path for Keats to follow. This image suggests that the poet's job is to nourish a poem's natural growth, not to bend the verses to their own will. The poem's lines, in Keats's vision, might be summoned by the poet, but they'll spring up with their own life, as organically as grass.
존 키츠
아름다운 것은 영원한 기쁨이네.
그 사랑스러움은 커져만 가고,
결코 흔적 없이 사라지지 않네.
언제나 우릴 위해 조용한 나무 그늘을 제공하고,
달콤한 꿈이 가득한 잠, 건강과 평온한 숨결을 가져다 주네.
그리하여 우리는, 아침마다, 절망,
고결한 품성의 비인도적 결핍, 우울한 일상,
우리가 헤쳐나가야 할
위험하고 암울한 미로에도 불구하고
우리를 지상에 묶어 놓을 꽃띠를 엮고 있네.
그렇네, 무엇보다도, 아름다움은, 자신의 여러 형상으로,
우리의 침울한 영혼을 덮고 있는
죽음의 천을 걷어 내네.
해와 달, 순박한 양에게 시원한 그늘을 마련하는
늙고 젊은 나무들이 그러하고,
수선화가 핀 푸른 초원, 뜨거운 계절에 대비하여
서늘한 은신처를 만드는 맑은 실개천,
아름다운 사향장미꽃이 화려한 숲속의 덤불이 그러하며,
위대한 인물에 대해
우리가 상상했던 장엄한 죽음,
우리가 듣고 읽었던 모든 아름다운 이야기들,
천국 가장자리에서 우리에게 쏟아지는
끝없이 샘솟는 영생불멸의 샘물이
또한 그러하네.
그리스 신화 이야기이다. 엔디미온(Endymion)이라는 목동이 있었다. 달의 여신 셀레네(Selene)는 잠자는 청년의 아름다움에 반해, 사랑에 빠진다.
그리고 제우스 신에게, 그가 죽어 그녀를 떠나지 않도록 영원히 죽지 않게 해 달라고 부탁한다. 제우스는 그를 영원히 잠들게 하고, 셀레나는 매일 밤 자고 있는 그를 방문하여 사랑을 나눈다.
이 신화는 전해 내려오면서, 내용이 약간씩 다른 이야기로 바뀌기도 한다. 존 키츠는 이 이야기를 바탕으로 1818년 발간된 그의 장편 시 "엔디미온" (Endymion)을 썼다.
달의 여신 셀레네는 '신시아' (Cynthia)로 이름을 바꿨다. 신시아는 그리스 신화의 달의 여신 '아르테미스' (Artemis)를 달리 부르는 이름이다.
키츠의 4부로 구성된 시집 "엔디미온" 은 비평가들의 혹평을 받았다. 키츠 본인도 이 시를 출간한 것을 나중에 후회했다.
하지만 키츠는 이 시를 쓴 것 자체를 후회하지는 않았으며, 그 창작 과정을 "주변 환경을 알기 위해 바닷속으로 뛰어드는 것" 으로 비유했다.
이 시는 키츠의 "엔디미온" 의 첫 부분이다. 비평가들로부터 높은 평가를 받는 키츠의 대표적 명시이다.
특히 이 시의 첫 행이며 제목인,
"아름다운 것은 영원한 기쁨이네"
(A thing of beauty is a joy forever)
는 가장 빈번하게 인용되는 어구의 하나이다.