The White Snake, Apollonius of Tyana, and John Keats’s Lamia

Abstract

The many details shared by John Keats’s Lamia and Feng Menglong’s treatment of the White Snake legend are evidence of a series of exchanges between Europe and Asia over the course of centuries. Ultimately these originated in Indian folklore which was transmitted to China, where it became Buddhist myth, and to the Hellenistic world in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Keats amplified these commonalities by using Philostratus’ serpent tale as a vehicle for considerations of Orientalism. In Apollonius he chose a figure that generated considerable controversy among Anglican theologians, both for the parallels in Philostratus’ hagiography to the life of Christ, and by his associations with Asian philosophy. Feng Menglong’s treatment of the White Snake legend was prominent in eighteenth-century China, and is likely to have been known to European visitors.