Liana Frauenberger
Professor Chan
ENG 114
25 September 2017
How Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” Reflects His Feelings and Beliefs Upon reading “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats, one may notice his references to the religions and customs of ancient Greek culture, and be able to contrast these observations to those he has made about other religions. The speaker studies the urn, and sees drawings of people partaking in activities and even dealing with personal struggles. An academic journal titled, “Just Beauty: Ovid and the Argument of Keats’s “‘Ode on a Grecian Urn”’ gives more information in regard to Keats’s observations. Arnd Bohm, the author of this article, tells of religious processes mentioned by Keats in both “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and one of his earlier works titled “Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition.” In these works, Keats references two different religions and different customs being practiced. In “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” ideas of beauty and love are also referenced heavily. According to the speaker’s observations, the Grecian urn seems to be not only beautiful and lyrical, but also has timelessness on its side; while such qualities are not mentioned about other religions and customs.
Bohm states that Keats struggled to accept the teachings of Christianity and saw a potential for nature to serve such a purpose while writing “Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition.” (Bohm 3). In this sonnet, Keats writes: “Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares,
Within this course, the ideas of the involvement of the mythological and the modern have been searched for throughout various types of literature. We have analyzed poems, essays, theatrical plays and even graphic novels to see the origin of their creative success among the masses. After studying these pieces and their formal elements, we can see that most literature falls under classic mythological premises such as ideas of a higher power/collective mind, power/wisdom through dream and the purity/unforeseen knowledge of children. These ideas seem to be something that is only really recognized by poets. The poem Often I Am Permitted To Return To A Meadow by Robert Duncan uses all of these elements. Within this poet’s work we see he composes a strong relationship between myth and modern day with classical ideas, a powerful quality that makes a great poet.
Keats composes in his poem, “…and I should feel a damp- a chill as from a tomb” (Poertryworld). The speaker makes his opinion obvious to the reader about his dislike for religion and finds it a vault for where his beliefs would go to die. In other lines such as, “The church bells toll a melancholy round” and “In some black spell; seeing that each one tears, Himself from fireside joys” (poetryworld). In those lines, the speaker further points out his resistance to religion and what people will do for religion such as, pull away from what makes them happy.
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.
Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and John Henry Newman were all great poets of the Victorian Era. Though all three of these poets were successful and well known, they did have their differences. This paper is going to show the different views each of these poets had on religion. All three of them had different views; some were against the strict religion of the Victorian Era and more open to a relaxed version that would focus more on the body and the spirit and what it wants. Others didn’t have too much of an opinion on them and were open
John Keats was born on October 31, 1795, in London, England. He loved to write poems, especially about romance and death. “Outside his friend Leigh Hunt 's circle of liberal intellectuals, the generally conservative reviewers of the day attacked his work, with malicious zeal, as mawkish and bad-mannered, as the work of of an upstart vulgar cockney poetaster- John Gibson Lockhart, and as consisting of the host incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language- John Wilson Croker”(John Keats). Many people attacked him and it affected him with his writing. “John Keats died on February
Meanwhile in “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, the speaker experiences the belly of the whale when he comes to the realization that he will never be immortal like the painting on the urn. The belly of the whale--as mentioned before--deals with the lowest point in the character’s life, and specifically in this case, the persona, a human with a mortal life desires the ability of being immortal. The speaker undergoes the same wants as Dorian Gray but does not gain them. If anything “Ode on a Grecian Urn” serves as the realistic version of people accepting mortality than The Picture of Dorian Gray. Although Dorian Gray expresses what it “looks like” to receive what a person wishes for, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” turns a lesson into a wide perspective about what
The moments in our lives that we consider peaks of happiness can never be eternal. That is why our desires for permanence and change alternate dependent on our given state of mind. John Keats, a man who, upon experiencing a great deal in his short 25 years, realized through these painfully human experiences that beauty is an idea that exists in a state of infinity, however our enjoyment of this beauty is ever changing. Thus, we begin to contradict ourselves, and wish simultaneously for both the permanent beauty of an event or feeling–as well as the unreachable joy for more. Keats’ two poems, Ode to a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale discuss these opposing ideals, and build off of each other in a way that is comparable to a student educating
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
Keats, however, chose to use religious topics to inspire his works in other ways. Robert Ryan says, "Keats decisively repudiated the Christianity of their time as incorrigibly dishonest and pernicious." (Ryan 5). Ryan's statement along with the symbolism in The Eve of St. Agnes makes me believe Keats to have preferred the old religion over the new.
By an effort of the imagination, Keats attempts to suppress all knowledge of the human
Lastly, another one of keats’ more famous poems is titled Urn. This poem, as now you probably have already guessed, is about an urn. Keats admired this urn from ancient greece and spent hours looking at it. It was beautiful and had all these different pictures and carvings on it. However, the one things that stood out to keats was that it was thousands of years old and it was still here. And I believe that his message was, when all mankind is dead, this pot will still be standing. But I believe that he meant that mankind won't be here forever, and he wanted people to remember that.
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
The twenty-four old romantic poet John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” written in the spring of 1819 was one of his last of six odes. That he ever wrote for he died of tuberculosis a year later. Although, his time as a poet was short he was an essential part of The Romantic period (1789-1832). His groundbreaking poetry created a paradigm shift in the way poetry was composed and comprehended. Indeed, the Romantic period provided a shift from reason to belief in the senses and intuition. “Keats’s poem is able to address some of the most common assumptions and valorizations in the study of Romantic poetry, such as the opposition between “organic culture” and the alienation of modernity”. (O’Rourke, 53) The irony of Keats’s Urn is he likens
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,
John Keats expressed the message of not wanting to be forgotten in both of the following poems called Ode to a Nightingale, and Ode on a Grecian Urn. Keats major worry before death was being forgotten and failing to leave an impact. In the poem Ode to a Nightingale, Keats has confusion with the versions of reality. It is emphasized that Keats is on a type of drug, making him see things not “normal”. In the fourth stanza, Keats has met up with a nightingale in a fantasy world. The bird suddenly flies away and the dream is over. The poet expresses his mental state which he explains is not caused by drugs are alcohol, yet compares it to those things. In the poem Ode on a Grecian Urn, Keats emphasizes the meaning of innocence. He develops the idea that the world is going to change. Things are going to suffer, but that’s the way the world works.