ABSTRACT
Recovering the Rosicrucian and Masonic associations popularly attached to mythology during the Romantic period offers a means to more fully decipher John Keats's own hieroglyphics by adding connotations that were equally prevalent during Keats's time. Hieroglyphics, astrologers, and sages possessed of wisdom from the East all played roles in the Rosicrucian and Masonic mythologies. The texts of both societies asserted their right to designate their emblems as hieroglyphics and connected them to the ancient history of the Egyptians as well as Hermes Trismegistus and the sages of the East. Masonic Monitors of the early nineteenth century further elaborated on these concepts via copious notes explaining that their hieroglyphics functioned as 'emblems or signs of divine, sacred, or supernatural things by which they are distinguished from common symbols, which are signs of sensible or natural things'.
