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Analysis Of ' Ode On A Grecian Urn '

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Poetry is a form of literature that makes the readers focus on the text and on what the author intentions are. It does this through meter, rhythms, and imagery. This makes poetry an ideal literature to be analyzed through the literary theory of Formalism. The theory of Formalism is the theory that the text is king. The text should be the sole focus for interpretation. The author’s intention doesn’t matter, and neither does the history that might be involved in the text. Rather the focus should be on the diction and imagery that the text produces. One particular text that can be used to show the merits of Formalism is John Keats “Ode on a Grecian Urn”. This paper will look at how Keats uses imagery to denote the eternal nature of artwork on a Grecian urn. Imagery that specifically causes the reader to think of adoption to time indicates the eternal nature of the urn. In the second line of the first stanza the writer tells the readers, “Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,” (Keats). The first thing that should be noticed in this line is the word “thou”. Thou is a designation of a specific person or thing, and it can be assumed from the title of the poem that Keats is specifically talking about a Grecian urn as the subject of this line. Another thing to notice is the word “foster-child” and what this word means. A foster-child is a child who lives in a home that isn’t his own, and is being taken care of by surrogate parents. The use of foster-child brings into the

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