"To Autumn"

In John keats poem “To Autumn”, we come across profound imagery that gives us an overwhelming feeling of music in correlation to spring. John Keats was born in London in the year 1795. Even though John Keats studied medicine, he devoted his life to the art of poetry, imagery and creative writing. His life was short lived as he only managed to reach the young age of twenty six, dying in the year 1821 from the ever changing tuberculosis virus (TB). Some of his famous works include “Ode to a Nightingale”, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and various other brilliant odes. In the following essay, I will be giving detailed references to the vast imagery in the last stanza of John Keats poem as well as to clarify the issue of how music is associated with the season of spring.

To introduce the first point of descriptive imagery, we are shown that the season of spring is associated with music. The season of spring gives us an overwhelming sense of renewal and pleasure in the same way that music does, just like the sun’s rays that reach out and touches the hearts of the flowers so does the soothing music touch the soul of many. “And gathering swallows twitter in the skies” (line 33), imagery here is given by Keats to explain or give us as readers the sense of the natural music sung by the birds during the season of rejuvenation. Whereas the season of autumn cannot give us that sense of renewal and pleasure as autumn is associated with ‘death’. Reason being that autumn comprises of the months where the lushes’ leaves are stripped from their trees and the fruits of the tree’s labour are taken away. “Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies” (line 29), the speaker portrays the light of the sun as life itself while the absence of it indicates death, d...

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...se that although literal music may be a way to articulate emotions felt, we need imagination as well to improvise on many facets that may come our way. In the sense that one may read many things and in order to truly understand it, you need more than just a dictionary in order to feel that true emotion of music but you need a great deal of the imagination to fully understand the true meaning of the words spoken or sung.

In conclusion the poem “To Autumn” does indeed embrace the theme of music as a whole by showing that the words written are not merely what they seem to be, but have a deep underlying meaning in connection to the rhythm of music. It is thus important to realise that not only is music vital, but it does fully express the energetic atmosphere that embodies the season of spring. As mentioned above with examples from other poems that Keats has written.