On The Grasshopper And The Cricket Analysis

Change: Examining Change within Nature in John Keats’ “On the Grasshopper and the Cricket” and Richard Wilbur’s “The Beautiful Changes”

Images of nature, and changes within it, are common themes within poetry. Both the poems “On the Grasshopper and the Cricket” by John Keats, and “The Beautiful Changes” by Richard Wilbur show a theme of change within nature, however Keats uses a continuous cycle to show that this change can occur independent of human interaction, where Wilbur presents a single change that is brought upon by a shift in the perspective of the speaker. Both poems use a metaphor to reveal a larger truth about the change that is occurring. The tone of both poems is also notably different; Keats’ poem seems to be circular, showing

In “On the Grasshopper and the Cricket”, Keats begins with a tone that depicts an extremely temperate world. He describes birds, creatures whom are typically related to summer months, as being “faint with the hot sun” (Keats 2). In contrast to this bleak image, the grasshopper is depicted as singing, and enjoying the heat in summer luxury: “a voice will run/From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;/That is the grasshopper’s – he takes the lead/ In summer luxury.” The tone used in this description is one of joy – we are shown a creature who is able to thrive within, and enjoy, the warm summer conditions. The second stanza, however, seems to be introduced quite differently. The new setting is in stark contrast to the one depicted within the first stanza, however the tone within the stanza follows the same pattern. The description of a “lone winter evening, when the frost/Has wrought a silence”, through the use of the same critical tone as describes the birds who are faint under the hot sun, also gives the reader a sense of a bleak world. This, again, is contrasted by a song: “The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,” (Keats 12). The joyful tone used within this line appears to again show a creature who can enjoy the harsh natural conditions. In this way, Keats uses a

Keats describes the change as a continuous process that is independent of human interaction and perception, where Wilbur shows changes that are brought upon by specific human interaction, and that require a change in perception to be inherently noticeable. Both poems use metaphors to enhance the descriptions of their changes, though Keats uses a metaphor of poetry to describe the changes, while Wilbur uses the changes as a metaphor to describe a speaker’s love of a beloved. The tone of both poems is used to show that a change has occurred, but while Keats presents a repeating tonal pattern to show the continuous cycle of changes, Wilbur presents a single change in tone that parallels the change within nature. Polarizing imagery of two very different settings is used in both poems to show that a change has occurred, however the methods by which the changes are observed are quite different. Through this comparison of the two poetic works, we are shown that observable changes within nature can happen whether they are independent of human interaction, or caused by a change in the perspective of the