John Keats "Ode To Autumn"

John Keats "Ode To Autumn"


The Composition of "To Autumn"
Keats wrote "To Autumn" after enjoying a lovely autumn day; he described his experience in a letter to his friend Reynolds:

"How beautiful the season is now--How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather--Dian skies--I never lik'd stubble fields so much as now--Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow a stubble plain looks warm--in the same way that some pictures look warm--this struck me so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it."


General Comments
This ode is a favorite with critics and poetry lovers alike. Harold Bloom calls it "one of the subtlest and most beautiful of all Keats's odes, and as close to perfect as any shorter poem in the English Language." Allen Tate agrees that it "is a very nearly perfect piece of style"; however, he goes on to comment, "it has little to say."
This ode deals with the some of the concerns presented in his other odes, but there are also significant differences. (1) There is no visionary dreamer or attempted flight from reality in this poem; in fact, there is no narrative voice or persona at all. The poem is grounded in the real world; the vivid, concrete imagery immerses the reader in the sights, feel, and sounds of autumn and its progression. (2) With its depiction of the progression of autumn, the poem is an unqualified celebration of process. (I am using the words process, flux, and change interchangeably in my discussion of Keats's poems.) Keats totally accepts the natural world, with its mixture of ripening, fulfillment, dying, and death. Each stanza integrates suggestions of its opposite or its predecessors, for they are inherent in autumn also.

Because this ode describes the process of fruition and decay in autumn, keep in mind the passage of time as you read it.



Analysis
Stanza I:
Keats describes autumn with a series of specific, concrete, vivid visual images. The stanza begins with autumn at the peak of fulfillment and continues the ripening to an almost unbearable intensity. Initially autumn and the sun "load and bless" by ripening the fruit. But the apples become so numerous that their weight bends the trees; the gourds "swell," and the hazel nuts "plump." The danger of being overwhelmed by fertility that has no end is suggested in the flower and bee images in the last four lines of the stanza. Keats refers to "more" later flowers "budding" (the -ing form of the word suggests activity that is ongoing or continuing); the potentially overwhelming number of flowers is suggested by the repetition "And still more" flowers. The bees cannot handle this abundance, for their cells are "o'er-brimm'd." In other words, their cells are not just full, but are over-full or brimming over with honey.

Process or change is also suggested by the reference to Summer in line 11; the bees have been gathering and storing honey since summer. "Clammy" describes moisture; its unpleasant connotations are accepted as natural, without judgment.

Certain sounds recur in the beginning lines--s, m, l. Find the words that contain these letters; read them aloud and listen. What is the effect of these sounds--harsh, explosive, or soft? How do they contribute to the effect of the stanza, if they do?

The final point I wish to make about this stanza is subtle and sophisticated and will probably interest you only if you like grammar and enjoy studying English:

The first stanza is punctuated as one sentence, and clearly it is one unit. It is not, however, a complete sentence; it has no verb. By omitting the verb, Keats focuses on the details of ripening. In the first two and a half lines, the sun and autumn conspire (suggesting a close working relationship and intention). From lines 3 to 9, Keats constructs the details using parallelism; the details take the infinitive form (to plus a verb): "to load and bless," "To bend...and fill," "To swell...and plump," and "to set." In the last two lines, he uses a subordinate clause, also called a dependent clause (note the subordinating conjunction "until"); the subordinate or dependent clause is appropriate because the oversupply of honey is the result of--or dependent upon--the seemingly unending supply of flowers.



Stanza II
The ongoing ripening of stanza I, which if continued would become unbearable, has neared completion; this stanza slows down and contains almost no movement. Autumn, personified as a reaper or a harvester crosses a brook and watches a cider press. Otherwise, Autumn is listless and even falls asleep. Some work remains; the furrow is "half-reap'd," the winnowed hair refers to ripe grain still standing, and apple cider is still being pressed. However, the end of the cycle is near. The press is squeezing out "the last oozings." Find other words that indicate slowing down. Notice that Keats describes a reaper who is not harvesting and who is not turning the press.
Is the personification successful, that is, does nature become a person with a personality, or does nature remain an abstraction? Is there a sense of depletion, of things coming to an end? Does the slowing down of the process suggest a stopping, a dying or dead? Does the personification of autumn as a reaper with a scythe suggest another kind of reaper--the Grim Reaper?

Speak the last line of this stanza aloud, and listen to the pace (how quickly or slowly you say the words). Is Keats using the sound of words to reinforce and/or to parallel the meaning of the line?



Stanza III
Spring inline 1 has the same function as Summer in stanza I; they represent a process, the flux of time. In addition, spring is a time of a rebirth of life, an association which contrasts with the explicitly dying autumn of this stanza. Furthermore, autumn spells death for the now "full-grown" lambs which were born in spring; they are slaughtered in autumn. And the answer to the question of line 1, where is Spring's songs, is that they are past or dead. The auditory details that follow are autumn's songs.
The day, like the season, is dying. The dying of day is presented favorably, "soft-dying." Its dying also creates beauty; the setting sun casts a "bloom" of "rosy hue" over the dried stubble or stalks left after the harvest. Keats accepts all aspects of autumn; this includes the dying, and so he introduces sadness; the gnats "mourn" in a "wailful choir" and the doomed lambs bleat (Why does Keats use "lambs," rather than "sheep" here? would the words have a different effect on the reader?). It is a "light" or enjoyable wind that "lives or dies," and the treble of the robin is pleasantly "soft." The swallows are gathering for their winter migration.

Keats blends living and dying, the pleasant and the unpleasant because they are inextricably one; he accepts the reality of the mixed nature of the world.

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John Keats "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

John Keats "Ode on a Grecian Urn"AnalysisStanza I.Stanza I begins slowly, asks questions arising from thought and raises abstract concepts such as time and art. The comparison of the urn to an "unravish'd bride" functions at a number of levels. It prepares for the impossibility of the fulfillment of stanza II and for the violence of lines 8-10 of this stanza. "Still" embodies two concepts--time and motion--which appear in a number of ways in the rest of the poem. They appear immediately in line 2 with the urn as a "foster" child. The urn exists in the real world, which is mutable or subject to time and change, yet it and the life it presents are unchanging; hence, the bride is "unravish'd" and as a "foster" child, the urn is touched by "slow time," not the time of the real world. The figures carved on the urn are not subject to time, though the urn may be changed or affected over slow time.
The urn as "sylvan historian" speaks to the viewer, even if it doesn't answer the poet's questions (stanzas I and IV). Whether the urn communicates a message depends on how you interpret the final stanza. The urn is "sylvan"--first, because a border of leaves encircles the vase and second because the scene carved on the urn is set in woods. The "flowery tale" told "sweetly" and "Sylvan historian" do not prepare for the terror and wild sexuality unleashed in lines 8-10 (another opposition); the effect and the subject of the urn or art conflict. Is it paradoxical that the urn, which is silent, tells tales "more sweetly than our rime"? Twice (lines 6 and 8) the poet is unable to distinguish between mortal and immortal, men and gods, another opposition; is there a suggestion of coexistence and inseparableness in this blurring of differences between them?
With lines 8-10, the poet is caught up in the excited, rapid activities depicted on the urn and moves from observer to participant in the life on the urn, in the sense that he is emotionally involved. Paradoxically, turbulent dynamic passion is convincingly portrayed on cold, motionless stone.Paradox and opposites run through the rest of the poem. As you read and reread the poem, you should become aware of them.


Stanza II.The first four lines contrast the ideal (in art, love, and nature) and the real; which does Keats prefer at this point? What is the paradox of unheard pipes? Is this an oxymoron?The last six lines contrast the drawback of frozen time; note the negative phrasing: "canst not leave," "nor ever can," "never, never canst" in lines 5-8. Keats says not to grieve; whom he is addressing--the carved figures or the reader? or both? Then he lists the advantages of frozen time; however, Keats continues to use negative phrasing even in these lines: "do not grieve," "cannot fade," and ""hast, not thy bliss." Keats may have made a mistake, or there may be a reason for this negative undertone, a reason which will become clear as the poem continues.

Stanza III.This stanza recapitulates ideas from the preceding two stanzas and re-introduces some figures: the trees which can't shed leaves, the musician, and the lover. Keats portrays the ideal life on the urn as one without disappointment and suffering. The urn-depicted passion may be human, but it is also "all breathing passion far above" because it is unchanging. Is there irony in the fact that the superior passion depicted on the urn is also unfulfillable, that satisfaction is impossible?How does he portray real life, actual passion in the last three lines? Which is preferable, the urn life or real life? Note the repetition of the word "happy." Is there irony in this situation?
Stanza IV.Stanza IV shows the ability of art to stir the imagination so that the viewer sees more than is portrayed. The poet imagines the village from which the people on the urn came. In this stanza, the poet begins to withdraw from his emotional participation in and identification with life on the urn.This stanza focuses on communal life (the previous stanzas described individuals). What paradox is implicit in the contrast between the event being a sacrifice and the altar being "green"? between leading the heifer to the sacrifice and her "silken flanks with garlands drest"?In imagining an empty town, why does he give three possible locations for the town, rather than fix on one location? Why does he use the word "folk," rather than "people"? Think about the different connotations of these words. The image of the silent, desolate town embodies both pain and joy. How is it ironic that not a soul can tell us why the town is empty and that the vase communicates so much to the poet and so to the reader? Is this also paradoxical?In terms of the theme of pain-joy, what is Keats saying in lines 1-4, which describe the procession? in the rest of the stanza which describes the desolate town? Is he describing a temporary or a permanent condition?Is the viewer, who is the poet as well as the reader, pulled into the world of the urn?
Stanza V.The poet observes the urn as a whole and remembers his vision. Is he emotionally involved in the life of the urn at this point, or is he again the observer? What aspect of the urn is stressed in the phrases "marble men and maidens," "silent form," and "Cold Pastoral"?Is there a paradox in the phrase "Cold Pastoral"?Yet the poet did experience the life experienced on the urn and comments, ambiguously perhaps, that the urn "dost tease us out of thought / As doth eternity." Is this another reference to the "dull brain" which "perplexes and retards" ("Ode to a Nightingale")? Why does Keats use the word "tease"? By teasing him "out of thought," did the urn draw him from the real world into an ideal world, where, if there was neither imperfection nor change, there was also no real life or fulfillment? Or, possibly, was the poet so involved in the life of the urn that he couldn't think? Was the urn an escape, however temporary, from the pains and problems of life? One thing that all these suggestions mean is that this is a puzzling line.In the final couplet, is Keats saying that pain is beautiful? You must decide whether it is the poet (a persona), Keats (the actual poet), or the urn speaking. Are both lines spoken by the same person, or do some of the quotation express the view of one speaker and the rest of the couplet express the comment upon that view by another speaker? Who is being addressed--the poet, the urn, or the reader? Are the concluding lines a philosophical statement about life or do they make sense only in the context of the poem? Click here to read the three versions of the last two lines.Some critics feel that Keats is saying that Art is superior to Nature. Is Keats thinking or feeling or talking about the urn only as a work of art? Your reading on this issue will be affected by your decision about who is speaking.No matter how you read the last two lines, do they really mean anything? do they merely sound as if they mean something? or do they speak to some deep part of us that apprehends or feels the meaning but it is an experience/meaning that can't be put into words? Do they make a final statement on the relation of the ideal to the actual? Is the urn rejected at the end? Is art--can art ever be--a substitute for real life?What, if anything, has the poet learned from his imaginative vision of or daydream participation in the life of the urn?

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Poetry Analysis: La belle Dame sans Merci- John Keats.

Poetry Analysis:

 La belle Dame sans Merci-

 John Keats.

la Belle Dame sans Merci, one among John Keats ultimate works, is a ballad which tells the story of a knight who fell in love with a paranormal creature, and now suffers the aftermath of a broken heart.

The poem begins with the poet locating a solitary knight stumbling across the countryside. The scene of autumn is defined: No grass grows at the river banks, the chirping birds are absent, squirrels and other animals have hoarded meals to preserve them all through wintry weather, and the harvest season is over. The poet wonders what sickness has gripped the knight, making him appearance so exhausted and miserable. He appears to be in a terrible circumstance: the coloration is fast fading from his cheeks and his brow glistens with sweat, contrasting with his increasing pallor. An charisma of mystery surrounds the scene, and one cannot help but marvel what a knight, a man used to motion and surviving in harsh situations, is doing on foot aimlessly around the moor, and what is it that has befallen him to lessen him to the sort of pitiful state.
With the fourth stanza the knight starts to inform his tale: He had met a stunning maiden in the meadows. She was the most lovely element he had solid eyes upon, with long flowing hair and a smooth unearthly grace which led him to believe that she ought to be a fairy treading the earth. Her eyes however had struck him as sad and doleful as if she became mourning something.
He tells the poet how she joined him on his horse and that they rode together. He had eyes most effective for her and did not observe whatever else, for she become receptive of his attentions and sang to him sweetly. He tried to woo her with the aid of making garlands and bracelets out of flowers and she or he gazed at him lovingly, giving him delectable matters to eat such as sweet roots and wild honey. She spoke in a different dialect but he become sure that she instructed him that she cherished him with all her heart.
The feel of suspense and mystery is further expanded inside the reader through now: even though one had predicted a woman to function prominently within the Knight’s endeavors, it became not common exercise for upper magnificence girls to be wandering around the nation-state with out an escort, and be as coming near near and conceited as to sing and moan to a stranger whom she has just met. who is this woman and in which did she come from?
a few questions are replied while the knight mentions that the female then took him to her elfin grot, and the reader realizes that the woman is an actual fairy, a supernatural being that the knight has fallen in love with. The knight remembers that she looked at him alas as he kissed her wild troubled eyes to sleep. As they slept together on the hill side, the knight had a dream: he noticed the deathly visions of kings, princes and warriors, with gnarled lips and ghastly figures. they all cried out to him, caution him that the female has no mercy and he is in her lure now as nicely. this is when he woke up and observed himself on my own and at the verge of demise, with none sign up his lover in sight. He has been wandering the land ever considering that, hoping either for his girl to return or for demise to include him.

for that reason the knight’s story involves an stop and his state of melancholy and illness is defined: he has fallen victim to a lover’s betrayal and abandonment. but the girl remains nevertheless an enigma, both to the poet and the reader. although on first appearance, the woman seems to be the traditional instance of the eye searching for egocentric female who mercilessly leads unwary young men to consider that she loves them and then deserts them, by myself of their grief. however on deeper have a look at it’s observed that there’s a lot greater to her individual: her eyes are sad and wild, her sighs sorrowful and her gaze mournful. could it be that she is as unlucky as her sufferers, sure by using fate to journey the earth and fall in love with mortals time and again most effective to ought to desert them as they couldn't be her fit? The beauty of the tale is this query remains forever unanswered; possible derive one’s own evaluation approximately her, however in no way understand for certain who she absolutely was.

aside from the constant advent of suspense and the thick aura of mystery which drapes the ballad and its characters, Keats has extensively utilized other figures of speech to further accentuate the exquisiteness of his poems. In touching on the sickness of the knight he compared he metaphorically describes his faded complexion as a ‘lily on his brow’ and his fading color as a ‘rapid withering rose.’ the first few stanzas also are rich with imagery as the poet draws the autumn scene of the desolate and lonely moors and the solitary knight inside the reader’s head.
The maximum primary ‘ethical’ of this story of woe is the dangers of heady, passionate love wherein you'll be able to get over excited and the upcoming heart spoil which follows every such transient affair. The knight turned into too impulsive in falling head over heels for a bizarre girl, and he needed to pay the charge for his impetuosity.
but, one can also argue that Keats wrote this poem as a committed tribute to absolute splendor. The knight had no choice to live on after once finding and dropping the epitome of beauty within the lovely enchantress. Materialistic splendor is fascinating yet ephemeral, and every being that strives to find it, has to be prepared for dropping it too, this is the revenge of time. folks that fail to recognize that quickly discover that no which means stays in whatever else afterwards.
any other quite somber interpretation of the poem is that it shows the outcome of every idealist romantic who believes in actual and everlasting love, casting a harsh light on the truth, that love is, regardless of how pure, in no way immortal. It can not remaining for all time and has to sooner or later bow down earlier than either time or dying.

This poem is, not not like most of Keats’s work, a personal favored each for being excellent in its language and tale, and thought frightening in its poetical philosophy.

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