Lamia (poem)

"Lamia" is a narrative poem written by English poet John Keats.The poem, written in 1819, tells how the God Hermes who hears of a nymph who is more beautiful than all. Hermes, searching for the nymph, instead comes across a Lamia, trapped in the form of a serpent. She reveals the previously invisible nymph to him and in return he restores her human form. She goes to seek a youth of Corinth, Lycius, whilst Hermes and his nymph depart together into the woods. The relationship between Lycius and Lamia, however, is destroyed when the sage Apollonius reveals Lamia's true identity at their wedding feast, whereupon she returns to her serpent state and Lycius dies of grief. The poem explores Keatsian themes such as the tension between reason and sensation, and the illusory but potentially redemptive quality of poetry and love.

Influence

The poem had a deep influence on Edgar Allan Poe's sonnet "To Science", specifically lines 229–238 and the discussion of the baleful effects of "cold philosophy":Do not all charms flyAt the mere touch of cold philosophy?There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:We know her woof, her texture; she is givenIn the dull catalogue of common things.Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine -Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile madeThe tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.Poe's closing lines also echo several lines near the middle of "Lamia". [Campbell, Killis. "The Origins of Poe", "The Mind of Poe and Other Studies". New York: Russell & Russell, Inc., 1962: 154–155.]

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