Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
Summary
In the first stanza, the speaker, standing before an ancient Grecian
urn, addresses the urn, preoccupied with its depiction of pictures frozen in
time. It is the "still unravish'd bride of quietness," the "foster-child of silence
and slow time." He also describes the urn as a "historian," which can tell a
story. He wonders about the figures on the side of the urn, and asks what
legend they depict, and where they are from. He looks at a picture that
seems to depict a group of men pursuing a group of women, and wonders
what their story could be: "What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? /
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?"
In the second stanza, the speaker looks at another picture on the
urn, this time of a young man playing a pipe, lying with his lover beneath a
glade of trees. The speaker says that the piper's "unheard" melody's are
sweeter than mortal melodies, because they are unaffected by time. He tells
the youth that, though he can never kiss his lover because he is frozen in
time, he should not grieve, because her beauty will never fade. In the third
stanza, he looks at the trees surrounding the lovers, and feels happy that
they will never shed their leaves; he is happy for the piper because his songs
will be "for ever new," and happy that the love of the boy and the girl will
last forever, unlike mortal love, which lapses into "breathing human
passion," and eventually vanishes, leaving behind only a "burning forehead,
and a parching tongue."
In the fourth stanza, the speaker examines another picture on the
urn, this one of a group of villagers leading a heifer to be sacrificed. He
wonders where they are going ("To what green altar, O mysterious
priest..."), and where they have come from. He imagines their little town,
empty of all its citizens, and tells it that its streets will "for evermore" be
silent, for those who have left it, frozen on the urn, will never return. In the
final stanza, the speaker again addresses the urn itself, saying that it, like
Eternity, "doth tease us out of thought." He thinks that when his generation
is long dead, the urn will remain, telling future generations its enigmatic
lesson: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." The speaker says that that is the only
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...o human life.
The final two lines--in which the speaker imagines the urn speaking
its message to mankind--"Beauty is truth, truth beauty"--have proved
among the most difficult to interpret in the Keats canon. After the urn utters
the enigmatic phrase "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," no one can say for sure
who "speaks" the conclusion, "that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye
need to know"; it could be the speaker addressing the urn, and it could be
the urn addressing mankind. If it is the speaker addressing the urn, then it
would seem to indicate his awareness of its limitations: the urn may not need
to know anything beyond the equation of beauty and truth, but the
complications of human life make it impossible for such a simple and
self-contained phrase to express sufficiently anything about necessary
human knowledge. If it is the urn addressing mankind, then the phrase has
rather the weight of an important lesson, as though beyond all the
complications of human life, all human beings need to know on earth is that
beauty and truth are one and the same. Which reading to accept is largely a
matter of personal interpretation.
Silence — the sound of quiet, the state of mind, the lack of meaning — all these pertain to its definition. Communication is expanding, noise is increasing, music is becoming more obtainable as people search desperately for a moment of peace or a breeze of silence. As the scarcity of physical silence increases, its value as a rare commodity increases as well. The idiom “Silence is golden” may perhaps only grow closer to reality as time passes, as exemplified by the white noise machines or silent fans entering the market and fictionalized in Kevin Brockmeier’s short story, “The Year of Silence.” In light of this, Brockmeier explores the value of silence and noise in his story without putting one above the other. Through strange clues and hidden
is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies." Then he goes on to say that
A farmer who only had enough land to support his family. The land contained servants and some family
...l concept, many consequences can arise as a result of it. Their display of self-destructive and reckless behavior endorses the idea that young lovers are not yet mature enough to handle the ramifications that appear as a result of a complicated relationship. Their willingness to rush into major events, such as marriage and even death, further shows how passion can cloud one’s judgement and control one’s thoughts and actions. Though written a long time ago, the message that Shakespeare conveys in Romeo and Juliet about young, passionate love applies to modern society as well, where great consequences arise from people acting on emotional impulse as opposed to calm reasoning.
The Virgin and the Whore: An Analysis of Keats’s Madeline in “The Eve of Saint Agnes”
At the very start of the poem, the speaker states firmly, “I want you to know one thing.” A descriptive and long stanza follows his brief statement. His third and fourth stanzas are similarly short being three and four lines long, respectively, and followed by another flowery stanza. His
...ferent approaches. In her letter, Grimke relies heavily on logic and rational reasoning to convince her reader. She makes the claim that being a “moral being” is sufficient to guarantee certain rights for all humans. In contrast, Truth’s speech seeks primarily to evoke an emotional response from the audience. Through literary devices and humor she engages the audience to successfully communicate her views. The styles of these pieces are incredibly different from each other, reflecting how different their authors are.
you die and know body knows were you are, so nobody can come to your
Life is full of change, it is the natural order of things, without change life would be at a standstill, without cause, just an empty world. Change is how new ideas arise, how things become better or worse, without it we wouldn’t be here on this earth. In opposition, there is also a world of changelessness, it is the only thing that remains constant in our lives, there is always change and that gives us the allusion of changelessness. Things are moving so fast that they seem to be standing still as a car flying down the road at sixty-five miles an hour, without the background we wouldn’t be able to tell of the movement. Each of these famous poems by Yeats express this view of the world in their own different stories His first being, “When You Are Old” a poem to a lost lover, in his past that he want to speak to her future person. Next there is the peace searching for him in, “Lake Isle Innis free” where he goes to escape the cities constant change, and his poem written at the same place, “The Swans at Lake Coole” as he watches the seemingly eternity living swans live forever. He finishes with the greatness of, “The Second Coming” where he strictly talks about what the human nature is losing, religion as in “Sailing to Byzantium” whereas the relation of changelessness would be the greatest ending to a life, instead of living that life over again. William Butler Yeats, has a fantastic way of expressing the opposition of the two mediums in life, Change and Changelessness.
What goes through the minds of those who know they will perish is a phenomenon to the minds of those who have not experienced the dance with death. For some, the moment that they know they will die is mere seconds before their own tragic ending, and others know long before it will happen. It is in these stretches of time that will test our intellect of our mind, body, and world when the time comes to know if we have truly lived. One definition of “living” is stated, “full of life of vigor”, which John Keats exhibited to the extreme. (Merriam-Webster) John Keats, world-renowned poet, knew his end was coming and he aspired to transcribe his thoughts into words on a page; it is with these words in which we, those who lack the experience of knowing
Time is an ever constant moving aspect of life. It can build one up and tear one down
Although both “Kubla Khan,” by Samuel Coleridge and “Ode on Grecian Urn,” by John Keats are poems originating from the poets’ inspiration from historical figure, the two poems convey different messages through their respective metaphors. While Coleridge emphasizes on the process of creating a Romantic poem, Keats expresses his opinion about art by carefully examining the details of the Grecian urn.
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. -Psalm 91: 1-6 ” (Jesus) The Second Coming, written by William Butler Yeats, addresses the concept of the gyre and portrays an approach to a new world order. Yeats expresses his belief of the soon coming end of the
In Ode to Psyche, Keats creates a very free and open ode by not sticking to a strict rhyme scheme and instead opting for a simple alternating rhyme scheme or couplets when he wants rhyming, or sometimes opting for no rhyme at all. Keats almost completely neglects internal rhyme,using it only three times, instead focusing on the descriptive language of the poem to deliver it’s message.