Ode On A Grecian Urn By John Keats Analysis

The similarities between the poems lie in their abilities to utilize imagery as a means to enhance the concept of the fleeting nature that life ultimately has and to also help further elaborate the speaker’s opinion towards their own situation. In Keats’ poem, dark and imaginative images are used to help match with the speaker’s belief that both love and death arise from fate itself. Here, Keats describes the beauty and mystery of love with images of “shadows” and “huge cloudy symbols of a high romance” to illustrate his belief that love comes from fate, and that he is sad to miss out on such an opportunity when it comes time for his own death.

Keats uses the image on the urn to express desire that can never be realized. The urn depicts a scene of a man and a woman about to kiss, but this image is frozen in time. This

this shows Keats' view on life; that we are born, we live, and then we

Heaney’s view of poetry differs from that of Yeats and Auden, but still has noticeably similar characteristics. Poetry is, for Heaney, and archeological process, that delves into the past of humanity as well as his own past. In relation to violence, Heaney sees poetry as having an obligation to honor the dead without glorifying or detrimenting them. “The Grauballe Man” is the perfect example of a poem that explores the past, but also deals with the struggles of the present. The poem is focused upon a dead body that was preserved in a Danish bog. Heaney uses his detailed description of the dead man to honor him. He moves from “the ball of his heel like a basalt egg” to “his slashed throat.” (Heaney 2954). He sees beauty in this preserved form, and refuses to call is a corpse or body. There is something beautiful to be found in an honest and reverent honoring of the dead. Heaney at first only thought of the man in the form of a picture, but having spent time with this eternal image of violence and death, “he lies perfected in [his] memory,” helping him to cope with the tragic violence of his life as a Catholic in Ireland’s Protestant north (Heaney 2955). Heaney uses poetry to process his reaction, but in a different way. Instead of verbalizing his conflicts directly, he simply looks upon the world with honesty and describes it in truth and clarity. In doing so,

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

Chirico has drawn a young girl running with the hoop near the lower left corner and a statue on the upper right corner. Based on perspective, the girl seems to be running towards the statue and the light. However, in reality, the young girl will never reach her goal. According to the poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, by John Keats, he claims life “as doth eternity: Cold Pastoral” (45), where the scene is frozen. The girl will always stay where she is and never move towards the unknown statue. Keats’ poem mostly depicts the urn as a painting that cannot ever move, just like the girl cannot move from her choice of work. In other words, nothing can go backward and forward. Close to the bottom, there is an open horse cart that appears to be lit by some unseen source of light, contrasting with the bright side of the painting. This illogical lighting allows the horse cart to stand out. Some might not notice, but in the building, there lies a human-like shape, with two tiny eyes, lurking in the shadows. The viewer can see the darken shape in the last dark arch on the right side. It seems as if this mysterious person plans to stalk the girl. The viewers cannot be too positive about the hidden figure in the shadows, which explains how the painting gives off a mysterious

1).From the first stanza onward, the poet draws upona fundamental motif in myth--- immortality---by using the image of tree.For Cirlot, tree is the “inexhaustible life, and is therefore equivalent to a symbol of immortality” (qtd. in Guerin, et.al. 189).Immortality is represented in the color of autumnal leaves, whichare gold signifying“the state of glory” (Cirlot56) in nature. Trees areseen asthe only place that a mancan escape from his mortality (Gates, par.2).This majestic beauty of gold “corresponds to the mystic aspect of the sun” (Cirlot 53) which epitomizes “life force, creative-guiding force, brightness, splendor, active awakening, healing, resurrection, ultimate wholeness” (Lawrence 3). Thus,Yeats’s desire in reaching wholeness is manifested in all minute parts of the

In the second stanza, the speaker beholds a piper joyfully playing under the tress for his lover to find him with song. “Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared. The use of imagery of the senses is effective here. For I consider poetry to be more musical in nature than literary text. The speaker claims to be hearing melodies emanating from the urn, which for me the sound transmission from the urn correlates to the finite aspects of fleeting love. While the nature of art of the urn seems to me to represent the exquisiteness and infinity of the universe. Indeed, the sounds of silence from art is akin to vastness of space and time. “She cannot fade, though, thou hast not thy bliss,” (line19). Keats is asking the readers to not grieve for him. Because, her beauty will not diminish over time it is everlasting.

In “To Autumn”, the season autumn is depicted as death, or as the Grim Reaper. Autumn is, however, an unusual reaper figure, in that they are not merciless, but patient and calm. Interestingly enough, the point of view Keats offers about death, is non-violent, not corporeal, and only implicit in the poem, through metaphors. Almost all human components are removed from the poem, and death is symbolized by nature only. It is put into a context where it occurs in the course of nature, and pictured as a consequence of riches, abundance, and fulfilment.

John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is written through the power of eternity, beauty and truth regardless of existence, as Wordsworth showed likewise. Keats illustrated his poem through love in its sublime. For example, in the first stanza he says, “What wild ecstasy?” (Keats 930). If ecstasy is a huge feeling of

The above is an excerpt from his poem ‘Endymion: A Poetic Romance’. This poem clocks “beauty” as a Greek legend Cynthia, the moon goddess. The poem is about seeking Cynthia that is seeking beauty. Beauty has been objectified by the poet-“A thing of Beauty”. Keats uses rhythm couplets a tool-like the pair “ever” and “never,” then “keep” and “sleep”. This is done to create a dramatic pause with tends to connect with each other involuntarily by the reader.

Keats, on the other hand, uses the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” to express his perspective on art by examining the characters on the urn from either an ideal or realistic perspective. In the beginning, Keats asks questions regarding the “mad pursuit” (9, p.1847) of the people on the Grecian urn. As the Grecian urn exists outside of time, Keats creates a paradox for the human figures on the urn because they do not confront aging but neither experience time; Keats then further discusses the paradox in the preceding stanzas of the poem. In the second and third stanza, Keats examines the picture of the piper playing to his lover “beneath the trees” (15, p.1847) and expresses that their love is “far above” (28, p.1848) all human passion. Even though

Here Keats shows his worry about his status as a poet and the idea of poetry but his narrative skills in The Fall are different from those of Hyperion. Keats deals awareness about human woes in The Fall of Hyperion and he says a poet is a healer of souls but unfortunately he cannot cure of his own sickness. When he is composing these two poems about Hyperion he has his own experience of sorrow about his sick brother Tom. After Tom’s death, Keats stops to write the epic and nearly after a year he reconstructs it into a vision of The Fall of Hyperion, in which the poet himself has to undergo a “struggle at the gate of death” before he can “see as a God sees” (Hyperion, 1, 304). He sympathizes over the misfortunes and troubles of human beings. Keats declares the world is the “vale of Soul-making,” and the Titans in the poem also dwell in a “dusk vale”. He argues for the importance of sympathetic identification in the foundation of moral judgments which he shows feeling the pain of the Titans. (Fermanis, 2009, p.

Throughout the poem, Keats uses symbolism to create polarities – such as death and life, experience and escape– that shifts the poem’s meaning to a philosophical thought process. The beginning stanza makes numerous references to death, but also to life as well. For instance, Keats references “Proserpine,” who was the goddess of the underworld, but also came to earth for half of the year so that she could be with her mother, Ceres, who was the goddess of the harvest (474, 170). Therefore, this immediately creates a polarity between spending half her time in

Imagery is seen all throughout the poem, but can be seen specifically when Keats is referencing death. Through the uses of the word “hemlock” which is a poison made of herbs, and “Lethe” which is, in Greek mythology, “a river in Hades (the underworld). Souls about to be reincarnated drank from it to forget their past lives.” (Melani) These words, along with others, paint a distinct picture of death and forms a very dark image of Keats’ inner thoughts. In the 2nd Stanza, Keats describes the real world with words such as “Flora” which is the “goddess of flowers and fertility.” (Melani) and Hippocrene which is, in Greek mythology, a “spring sacred to the Muses, located on Mt.Helicon. Drinking its waters inspired poets.” (Melani) Through the uses of these words, readers can infer that Keats seems to think that life, when enjoyed, is blissful and pure. Imagery is used