An Ode to a Grecian Urn by John Keats John Keats's poem "An Ode to a Grecian Urn", is written encompassing both life and art. Keats uses a Grecian urn as a symbol of life. He refers to the Greek piece of art as being immortal, with its messages told in endless time. Walter J. Bate explains that the Sisobas Vase that Keats traced at the home of his artist friend Haydon, the Townly Vase at the British Museum, or the Borghese Vase in the Louvre, are suggested by scholars to possibly be the ones that Keats had in mind while writing his poem (510-511). Being that Keats had quite a respectable knowledge of Greek art, it is also quite possible that he had no particular vase in mind at all. Outside of that, our chief concern is the meaning of the poem itself. As author Jack Stillinger proposes, "the speaker in a romantic period begins in the real world, takes off in mental flight to visit the ideal then returns home to the real." However, because of his experiences during flight, he never returns to where he began and will be, however slight, forever changed (3). The purpose of this paper is to primarily focus on the first stanza. In the first line of the poem, "Thou still unravished bride of quietness," (1), Keats refers to the urn as the unravished bride, or a thing of beauty, but not just simply pleasing to the eye. It is a bride of silence, or so it may seem. Later, we read that the "silent bride" had recorded annals to deliver. As Patterson explains, "he suggests its changeless ungenerative descent through the ages; it does not reproduce itself and transmits itself and it's meaning directly" (49). As Douglas Bush points out, Keats begins with an "inanimate anonymous artifact which in itself can be called immorta... ... middle of paper ... ...y. The controversy being: Is this brilliance of a failure. "Although the line, 'beauty is truth and truth beauty…' is nonetheless a brilliant failure… I believe that the poet tries to say too much" (64-65). Patterson observes that 'it was simply written different than "To Autumn" and "Ode to a Nightengale." It lacks the even finish and extreme perfection." But is much superior in other qualities. "In fact, the Ode to a Grecian Urn may deserve to rank first in the group [of Odes] if viewed in something approaching its true complexity and human wisdom" (56-57). In the closing line, "beauty is truth, truth beauty (49), it summarizes the whole intellectual content of the poem. The beauty of the urn has preserved life of Greece and passed it on in truth. Keats inspiration of Greek art has been interbred with life. The poem is a hybrid of life and Greek art.
Keats’ poetry explores many issues and themes, accompanied by language and technique that clearly demonstrates the romantic era. His poems ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Bright Star’ examine themes such as mortality and idealism of love. Mortality were common themes that were presented in these poems as Keats’ has used his imagination in order to touch each of the five senses. He also explores the idea that the nightingale’s song allows Keats to travel in a world of beauty. Keats draws from mythology and christianity to further develop these ideas. Keats’ wrote ‘Ode To A Nightingale’ as an immortal bird’s song that enabled him to escape reality and live only to admire the beauty of nature around him. ‘Bright Star’ also discusses the immortal as Keats shows a sense of yearning to be like a star in it’s steadfast abilities. The visual representation reveal these ideas as each image reflects Keats’ obsession with nature and how through this mindset he was able
In the text Bishop states, “The monument is one-third set against/ a sea; two thirds against a sky.” (line 18) It is suggested that the monument is one with nature. The narrator goes on to state, “A sea of narrow, horizontal boards/lies out behind our lonely monument,/its long grains alternating right and left/like floor-boards--spotted, swarming-still,/and motionless.” Here the author personifies the monument by describing it as “swarming-still”. The phrase swarming-still is contradictory because an object cannot move and be still at the same time. The narrator personifies the monument as to express its life-like qualities. The location of the monument is never stated. A second voice joins the poem and questions the location of their presence, “‘Where are we? Are we in Asia Minor,/ Or in Mongolia?’” (line 33) Without knowledge on the location of the monument it is difficult to know what it means. The narrator ponders on what the monuments purpose is, “An ancient promontory,/ an ancient principality whose artist-prince/ might have wanted to build a monument/ to mark a tomb or boundary, or make/ a melancholy or romantic scene of it…” (line 35) The narrator herself is unsure of who created the monument or why. This pushes the audience to develop their own perceptions as the narrator brainstorms about its significance. A voice separate from the narrator states, “‘But that queer sea looks made of wood,/half-shining,like a driftwood sea./And the sky looks wooden, grained with cloud./ It’s like a stage-set; it is all so flat!/Those clouds are full of glistening splinters!/What is that?’”(line 40) This voice questions the scenery surrounding the monument. The narrator states that, “It is the monument” This implies that the narrator perceives the surrounding environment to be part of the monument itself. Another voice says, “‘Why did you bring me here to see
In his sonnet "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time," John Keats presents a series of various forms of conflict and tension. Most prominent is the poet's sense of his own fleeting existence juxtaposed with the eternity of the Greek marble sculptures and, perhaps, with the timelessness of art in general. However, there is another, more subtle tension between what is in existence, and what is not, an absence which paradoxically manifests as a form of existence in itself. The presence of this conflict within the sonnet shows Keats's self-coined Negative Capability, the ability to be in "uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason" (Keats 863). Furthermore, the Negative Capability exemplified here is produced by the speaker's empathetic experience with the ruins of the Greek sculptures, which he appreciates in their entirety, not only for the fragments which have physically remained intact, but also for the lost portions and details, which are an essential element of their ruinous state.
Symbols like "The church bells toll a melancholy round" and "That fresh flowers will grow" present a rather humorous sense of irony in the poem. Here he is talking about "gloominess" and "More hearkening to the sermon's horrid sound" when he throws in melancholy round bells and fresh flowers, that is irony at its best. I find it funny that he describes how church rips you away form fireside joys and lydian airs and that the mind of man must be bound in some black spell and yet to start of the poem he uses a positive note, "The church bells toll a melancholy round", and to help end it he uses a positive note, "That fresh flower will grow". Both of these quotes seem out of place considering how Keats has described other things in his poem but that is what makes them
John Keats' "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles" is a sonnet written upon visiting the British Museum, subsequent to the country's purchase of marble statues that had originally been part of the Parthenon in Athens. The poem contains a web of underlying tensions and conflicts that are evident in both the words and imagery of the poem. However, unlike other sonnets in which conflict is often resolved by the end, this sonnet leaves a lasting feeling of despair which sheds light on the internal strife embodied within the speaker himself.
John Keats’s illness caused him to write about his unfulfillment as a writer. In an analysis of Keats’s works, Cody Brotter states that Keats’s poems are “conscious of itself as the poem[s] of a poet.” The poems are written in the context of Keats tragically short and painful life. In his ...
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.
John Keats employs word choices and word order to illustrate his contemplative and sympathetic tone. The tone could be interpreted as pessimistic and depressing because the majority of the poem focuses on Keats’ fear of death. However, if the reader views the last two lines of the poem in light which brings redemption, one might see that Keats merely wants to express the importance of this dominant fear in his life. He does not desire for his audience to focus on death, but to realize that man does not have control of when it comes. The poet uses poetic diction, a popular technique of the early nineteenth century. The poem also demonstrates formal diction that Keats is often known for. Although Keats meant for most of his words to interpret with denotative meanings, he does present a few examples of allusion and connotation. His connotations include “teeming,” defined as plen...
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.
Keats places allusions throughout the poem as a way of referencing the mythical essence nature. Full of references to greek mythology, keats’ placement of these allusions reinforces a belief in nature as a perfect and mythical world that promises escape from human frailty. The speaker states in line 16 “ Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene/...that I might drink, and leave the world unseen” . In greek lore the Hippocrene was a sacred spring to muses and was said to inspire poets. By alluding to specific greek mythology Keats reinforces the otherworldly quality of the poem. To a degree, these allusions influence the overall tone of the piece as well, making the poem seem almost dreamlike, which in turn paint nature as being a place to escape the struggles of human existence.
Examining the definition of “ode,” there is a strong connection between song and poetry—an ode being “a poem intended to be sung or one written in a form originally used for sung performance”--, and within both poems the inspiration of each narrator is described in terms of creating poems meant to be sung. Essentially, Keats’s poem plays with the concept of the poetic form of an ode on a couple of different levels. Firstly, the nightingale, in stark contrast to the narrator’s feelings of despair, is presented as a “light-winged Dyrad of the trees, / In some melodious plot / … Singest of summer in full-throated ease” (“Ode to a Nightingale 7-8, 10). By introducing the nightingale in this manner, and by referring to it twice with musical adjectives—referencing its “melodious plot” and how the bird “singest of summer”—establishes this element of song as the focal point of the nightingale. Similarly, the goddess Psyche is first introduced by means of song, as the narrator begins “Ode to Psyche” by singing, and asking her to hear “these tuneless number” (Ode to Psyche 1) and to “pardon thy secrets should be sung” (3). The musical references to Psych continue in the third stanza, as the narrator laments the inclusion of Psyche into the Greek pantheon, he reveals
...storal” (45, p.1848). The urn’s eternity only exists artistically and does not reflect human life because only the urn “shou remain” forever (47, p.1848). Keats contrasts the ephemeral nature of human life with the longevity of the urn. In last two lines, Keats declares, “beauty is truth, truth beauty” (29, p.1848) embodying both sides of his perspective. By establishing a relationship between beauty and truth, Keats acknowledges that like truth, the beauty of the Grecian urn is unchangeable and that the ability accept reality is beautiful.
The first stanza is crowded with sensual and concrete images of nature and its ripeness during the first stages of Autumn. Autumn is characterized as a “season of…mellow fruitfulness” (1). It is a season that “bend[s] with apples the mossed cottage-trees” (5), “fill[s] all fruit with ripeness to the core” (6), “swell[s] the gourd, and plump[s] the hazel shells” (7), and “set[s] budding more” (8). The verbs that Keats uses represent the bustling activity of Autumn and also reflect the profusion of growth. Autumn also acts as the subject of all the verbs, indicating its dynamic behavior. Furthermore, the multitude of these images depicting the ripening of nature contributes to the sense of abundance that characterizes the first stanza. The stanza also contains many short phrases, again calling up images of abundance. Keats, through his use of sensual imagery, draws readers into the real world where there will ultimately be decay and death. The sound devices in this stanza further develop the sensual imagery and...
How is Bloom’s theory of influence connected to Keats and his ‘Ode on a Grecian urn’? As indicated by its title, Keats’s poem and Keats himself was influenced by Greek culture, which is confirmed in a further reading of the poem, when Keats mentions Arcadia and gods in the following lines: In Tempe or the dales of Arcady/ What men or gods are these?. It is generally known that Greek religion was based on polytheism and Arcadia is the province of Ancient Greece, in which were localized scenes from many pastoral poems.
"Ode on a Grecian Urn" discuses the idea of immortality in a picture, and how if a moment is captured on an urn then does it exist always? It seems the theme of this poem came from a phrase of Leonardo DiVinci: "Cosa bella mortal passa e non d'arte." Translated, this means mortal beauties pass away, but not those of art. "Ah, happy, happy boughs! That cannot shed your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu." Keats uses personification in this example to make the tree branches seem like they are happy and enjoying the situation. In the third stanza the word "forever" is repeated: "And, happy melodist, unwearied. Forever piping songs forever new. More happy love, more happy, happy love. Forever warm and still to be enjoyed. Forever panting, and forever young." This repitition is done to draw attention to the word forever which makes the reader appreciate the true meaning of the poem, which is the debate over immortality and death and what immortality means.