Guest Post: John Keats on "Endymion" (before and after its April 1818 publication)

Keats' preface to Endymion

'The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages. I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful mythology of Greece and dulled its brightness: for I wish to try once more, before I bid it farewell.'

He wrote to his publisher Hessey in October 1818:

'In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the Sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, & the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea & comfortable advice. -- I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.'

The mention of a "space of life" or "lifetime" in the preface reminds me of a similar mention of youthful ferment described in a previous April's guest post by Fred Holderlin.