Time is an ever constant moving aspect of life. It can build one up and tear one down
in an instance, for everything revolves around time. In John Keats’s ever famous poem “Ode On
A Grecian Urn” Keats ponders over the immortal world painted on the structure and the changing one in which all humans live in.
The structure that makes the poem is one of many characteristics, two being rhyme and meter. “Ode On A Grecian Urn” is dominantly iambic pentameter (with ten syllables per line and five feet) which gives the poem a nice flow. Each line begins with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed. For each of the five stanzas- five feet per line with ten lines which contain ten syllables in five stanzas, what a coincidence- the first seven lines have a rhyme scheme of ababcde. The next three lines however vary with each stanza; the first stanza ends with dce, the second stanza ced, the third cde, the fourth cde, and finally the fifth dce.
The second stanza seems to be the only stanza without a matching rhyme scheme; the first stanza has the fifth and the third has the fourth. This ‘lonesome’ stanza gives the poem a sense of imperfectness, just like the mortal life humans live in, whereas upon the urn life is ‘perfect’ and immortal.
Along the lines of stanzas, no pun intended, the poem creates a circle. Since the first and last stanza have a matching rhyme scheme, the poem revolves and then comes back to the beginning with a whole new perspective. In the first stanza it is being accepted that the urn is beautiful yet mysterious and in the fifth stanza, after a closer look, it is realized that it is not as ‘perfect’ as Keats first believed. One possible interpretation of why Keats crafted the poem int...
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...Charles. "Passion and Permanence in Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn." Twentieth Century Interpretations of Keats's Odes. Ed. Jack Stillinger. New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. 48, 50. Print.
-Wasserman, Earl. "Chapter Two: Discussions of Particular Poems "The Ode to a Grecian Urn"." Twentieth Century Views Keats A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Walter Jackson Bate. New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964. 119. Print.
-Cummings, Michael. "Ode on a Grecian Urn: a Study Guide." Cummings Study Guides. N.p., 2012. Web. 27 Feb 2012.
-zachsonn, . ""Ode on a Grecian Urn" Literary Analysis." Bookstove. N.p., October 13, 2010. Web. 27 Feb 2012. .
-Hirst, Wolf. John Keats. New York:
Twayne Publishers, 1981. 15, 16, 20.
First of alll, the poem is divided into nine stanzas, where each one has four lines. In addition to that, one can spot a few enjambements for instance (l.9-10). This stylistic device has the function to support the flow of the poem. Furthermore, it is crucial to take a look at the choice of words, when analysing the language.
Ezra Jack Keats: A Virtual Exhibit. The University of Southern Mississippi De Grummond Children's Literature Collection. Web. 19 July 2010. .
Rhyme-The last words of line one and line three of each stanza rhyme. The last words of line two and line four of each stanza also rhyme. The rhyming words contribute to the rhythm and flow of the poem.
Keats, John. "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles." Ed. Abrams H. M. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2 The Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. Print.
...s fullest. The first stanza contains active imagery, while the second uses passive. The third stanza is expected to contain even more passive diction, but instead uses a mix of both active and passive. The active diction is used a little bit more. The diction in the third stanza is what makes this poem so great. If you add this proof to the first two, you get life slipping away as it progresses, with the individual being active even as he is dying. In other words, the person is enjoying his life as it slips into death?s hands, which is the theme of the poem.
It has been acknowledged by many scholars that Yeats' study of Blake greatly influenced his poetic expression. This gives rise to the widely held assertion that Yeats is indebted to Blake. While I concur with this assertion, I feel that the perhaps greater debt is Blake's.
The images of life and death is also repesented in Keats "Ode on a Grecian
Many poets were around during the Romantic period that were beginning to write differently about the changes in society during the nineteenth century. The combination of syntax, rich language and imagery makes John Keats’ publications recognizable even in current times. Not all poets were able to write about life the way this author did, even with the tragedies that he experienced. John Keats produced some of the finest works of poetry to capture the upcoming ideas of imagination and changes in society during his
Throughout Keats’s work, there are clear connections between the effect of the senses on emotion. Keats tends to apply synesthetic to his analogies with the interactions with man and the world to create different views and understandings. By doing this, Keats can arouse different emotions to the work by which he intends for the reader to determine on their own, based on how they perceive it. This is most notable in Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, for example, “Tasting of Flora, and Country Green” (827). Keats accentuates emotion also through his relationship with poetry, and death.
The casual reader of John Keats' poetry would most certainly be impressed by the exquisite and abundant detail of it's verse, the perpetual freshness of it's phrase and the extraordinarily rich sensory images scattered throughout it's lines. But, without a deeper, more intense reading of his poems as mere parts of a larger whole, the reader may miss specific themes and ideals which are not as readily apparent as are the obvious stylistic hallmarks. Through Keats' eyes, the world is a place full of idealistic beauty, both artistic and natural, who's inherent immortality, is to him a constant reminder of that man is irrevocably subject to decay and death. This theme is one which dominates a large portion of his late poetry and is most readily apparent in three of his most famous Odes: To a Nightingale, To Autumn and on a Grecian Urn. In the Ode to a Nightingale, it is the ideal beauty of the Nightingale's song - as permanent as nature itself - in the Ode on a Grecian Urn, it is the perfection of beauty as art transfixed and transfigured forever in the Grecian Urn - and in the Ode to Autumn it is the exquisiteness of the season idealised and immortalised as part of the natural cycle - which symbolise eternal and idealistic images of profound beauty.
”To Autumn” is an ode written by John Keats on the 19th of September 1819. While walking near Winchester along a river, Keats became inspired to write the poem. The Rest of his other odes were completed in the spring of 1819. John died on the 23rd of February 1921 at the age of 25, just a year after the release of “To Autumn”. However, throughout his life he inspired many poets, but most notably Percy Shelly. In mourning, he wrote the elegy “Adonais” for Keats.”To Autumn “is his final poem and many have said it is his best. Keats use of imagery takes the reader on an adventure through the scenes and sounds of autumn. He achieves this by his use language, imagery, tone and structure. This is also what creates the mood and consequently allows him to challenge the notion that music is usually associated with spring. Thus, in this essay I will show how he challenges this belief, by looking at his use of imagery, tone and form. In addition I will look at what his influences were and the context in which he wrote the poem.
John Keats’ belief in the beauty of potentiality is a main theme of him great “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” This idea appears in many of his other poems that precede this ode, such as “The Eve of St. Agnes,” but perhaps none of Keats’ other works devote such great effort to showcase this idea. The beauty of the Grecian Urn (likely multiple urns), and its strength as a symbol, is a masterful mechanism. Just about all facets of this poem focus on an unfulfilled outcome: but one that seems inevitably completed. Thus, while the result seems a foregone conclusion, Keats’ static world creates a litany of possible outcomes more beautiful than if any final resolution.
This opposition shows Keats highlighting the delicate correspondence between happiness, death and melancholy having humanistic traits. In order to experience true sorrow, one must feel true joy to see the beauty of melancholy. However, Keats’s poem is not all dark imagery, for interwoven into this poem is an emerging possibility of resurrection and the chance at a new life. The speaker in this poem starts by strongly advising against the actions and as the poem continues urges a person to take different actions.
Truth remains a mysterious essential: sought out, created, and destroyed in countless metaphysical arguments through time. Whether argued as being absolute or relative, universal or personal, no thought is perceived or conceived without an assessment of its truth. In John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and E.E. Cummings' "since feeling is first" the concern is not specifically the truth of a thought, but rather, the general nature of truth; the foundation which gives truth is trueness . Both poets replace investigation with decision, and that which would be argumentation in the hands of philosophers becomes example and sentiment in their poems. Each poet's examples create a resonance within the reader, engineered to engender belief or provoke thought. Employing images of unconsummated actions on an ancient urn carved with scenes from life, Keats suggests that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"; Cummings, on the other hand, offers emotion as the foundation of truth, and supports living life fully through diction, theme-suggestive syntax, and images of accomplished action.
The second stanza of John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” begins with the line, “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter.” With this line Keats is saying that while spoken word is important and beautiful, a picture is worth 1000 words. The first four lines of the stanza set the stage for the story of the Urn to be told, and there is a clear separation between the first four lines of the stanza and the last six. Keats makes this separation obvious with his rhyming scheme. The first four lines of the stanza go ABAB with B being an implied rhyme, and the last six lines go CDECED. Each line of the second stanza has ten syllables except the