Psyche was not a goddess of primitive Greek myth, but was a creation of Apuleius in second century A.D. The ode begins by directly addressing Psyche. Keats is inspired by the dear remembrance of his vision of Cupid and Psyche, couched in embrace in a green recess. Their readiness to outnumber past kisses is counterbalanced by their calm breathing. Here, frankly, is the physical manifestation of their love, and yet there is no trace of grossness or feverishness.

From this sensuous picture, Keats goes on to tell of PsycheÂ’s lack of a temple, alter, virgin-choir, incense, priesthood, all the happy pieties of the mythical.

“When holy were the haunted forest-boughs,

Holy the air, the water and the fire”.

KeatsÂ’ desire is to create a temple dedicated to Psyche, because she became a goddess too late to have a temple. But this temple will be the creation of his poetic imagination.

Critical Appreciation of Keats’ Ode to Psyche. He therefore intends to give her poetically the “vows” which she was too late to receive. He will be the devotee of Psyche, priest and choir and shrine and grove. She shall have a temple in some untrodden region of the mind’ and shall enjoy

“……all soft delight

That shadowy thought can win”.

And the bright torch guiding love (Cupid) on his way to Psyche through the open casement would likewise originate in the realm of shadowy thought. KeatsÂ’ imagination here preserves sensuality while refining it into religious sensibility. He here makes the whole ritual a creation, not of religion, but of his poetic imagination.

In the final stanza, the role of Keats the poet in building a temple of the mind is set forth in a tissue of metaphors from Nature, partly transmuted from Nature’s pictorial details of the opening stanza. After a reference to “dark-clustered trees” decking “the wild-ridged mountains”, which suggests the wilder reaches of the poetic imagination, Keats relapses into the cosy world of Flora and old Pan, a private secluded world of quietness and “soft delight”.

The ode ends with a return to the myth and the union of Love (Cupid) and Psyche (Love’s soul) in “shadowy thought”.

The ode is a picture of harmonious creativity, and reveals a deep Hellinic strain in Keats.

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