Literary Analysis Of John Keats's 'To Autumn'

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The poem, “To Autumn” by John Keats is as the title implies, an ode to autumn, but it is also an ode to the death of spring and summer and the life that they held. As an ode implies this poem celebrates autumn, but it is also a celebration of life and more specifically Keats’s life. This being said it is also an ode to the end of life and the end of innocence. Without knowing the meaning behind even the title one cannot understand this poem. Stanza three encompasses this best as it is the closing stanza. This poem is written in three stanzas, but more importantly each stanza is eleven lines long. It is written in iambic pentameter, but the meter is not consistent even in the one stanza. In the stanza the first four lines in an ABAB rhyme …show more content…

He no longer wishes to write about mythological characters that are infinite, therefore he instead wishes to write about something relatable, something that is going to die just as he is. Keats wrote this poem in 1819 and he died at the age of twenty-five in 1821. He did not know how long he had left at the time, but he did know that it would not be much longer and he could not look the spring with joy as he once did. In the article “The Poet’s Season,” the author writes, “Perhaps a different life would have made Keats kinder to the spring and more ready to receive its extravagant benisons. As it was, he managed to leave a poem that stands as the perfect overture to the long, slow-beating, sidereal symphony of autumn in its glory.” Nothing can capture better the mood of Keats of what could have been had been allowed a longer life without such a bleak ending.
Keats also chose to write about autumn as to give ‘her’ a sort of pick me up about herself. He says I know that you will end in winter and you get the shortest days and most mourn as you lead to death, but you are still beautiful. There is still a reason for you, just look at what you bring. But Keats is more reminding himself that it isn’t over yet, that he can still find beauty in the time that he has left as it is all he has left to

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