Abstract
Keats compounds an error when he writes, initially, that thing of beauty is a joy for ever (the opening line of Endymion), and, later, Beauty is truth, truth beauty-that is all / Ye on earth, and all ye need to know (the last line of Ode on a Grecian Urn). He reveals here the limitations of his particular version of romanticism, but let me begin with some obvious objections to his poetic epigrams. First, beauty is ethnocentric, it is in the eye of the cultured beholder. For example, what we would consider obesity, and/or the gross exaggeration of secondary sexual features, is considered beautiful and desirable among certain peoples of East Africa. Arab or East Indian music characteristically grates on the Western ear-West African drumming can hardly be followed in its subtle variation of rhythms-but these sounds are beautiful and expressive in their native haunts.
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