ABSTRACT
In contrast now to all of the verse written after Endymion and before Lamia, words almost as frequently polysyllabic as in Augustan verse are drawn upon. In more marked contrast is the high percentage of Latinity in the diction of Lamia. A further contribution to the increase in speed which characterizes Lamia is a diminution of diphthongs and historically "long" vowels. The prosody of Lamia, however, despite its frequent close following of that of Dryden and on occasion that of Sandys, is anything but slavish in imitation, and does great credit to Keats's own technical ability even at this uncertain time when he appeared, for a while, to lay comparatively little store by prosodic technique. In Lamia, on the other hand, the pause, except when variation is deliberately sought, is almost invariably after the concluding line of the couplet. The rather frequent run-on lines of Lamia, when considered as a whole, are consequently no indication of looseness of couplet structure.
