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Analysis Of 'To Autumn' By John Keats

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The years between 1818 and 1821 mark the final stages of John Keats’ life. Those last few years were tumultuous for Keats. Family deaths, poverty, and a doomed romantic interest were things that contributed to his anxieties. However, those years also proved to be some of Keats most inspirational. It was a combination of these inspirations and anxieties that would lead to some of his greatest works. In that short period of time, he produced masterpiece after masterpiece: “The Eve of Saint Agnes”, “La Belle Dame sans Merci”, and his great odes.
“To Autumn” was one the last poem created within the series of great odes. All together, these poems contain characteristics typical of Romantic poetry. The odes look at external nature, the …show more content…

Second, they make the trees with ripe apples and fruit. Third, they work together “to swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells” (line 7) and finally, they bud more flowers until the beehives are overflowing with honey. All these examples show life and energy running through nature as vines run, gourds swell and flowers bud. It has taken all of summer to create this feast, an insurmountable amount of effort from the collaboration between nature and manual labor. The language accentuates this hard work by forcing the mouth to form the words. The effort in producing the “s” sound in words like “fruitfulness”, “conspiring”, “swell” and “cease” mirror the work needed to create the harvest. The soothing sounds of the “O” sound in “close-bosom”, “load”, “moss’d cottage” and “gourd” create a contrast between effort and gentleness. The use of monosyllabic words in phrases like “how to load and bless/ the vines with fruit that round the thatch-eves run” (line 3-4) have a dense, heaviness to them like the harvest and enhances the energy throughout the first stanza.
But this is summer. Keats sees autumn as the climax of summer since the sun has not finished maturing yet. Autumn acts as a promoter who follows the sun as it matures and to make the harvest ripe “to the core”. The season and the sun have done their job as the word “core” is in the middle of the

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