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Keats was an important figure in early 19th century poetry and arguably wrote some of the most beautiful and moving poetry in the English language, despite dying at a very young age. Many of Keats’ themes and concerns are essentially Romantic such as the beauty of nature and the transience of human life in time. Keats seems troubled by a quest for beauty and perfection and this is especially obvious in his odes. These lyric poems were written between March and September 1819 and Keats died in 1821.
This paper would discuss and evaluate a comparison between Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn and ‘Ode to Autumn’. In Keats’ famous masterpiece Ode on a Grecian Urn, he has turned to sensuousness of art. Instead of identifying with the fluid expressiveness of music the speaker attempts to engage with the static immobility of sculpture. This is done by examining the pictures on the urn and by the speaker describing them and interpreting their meaning. Finding a paradox in nearly all that he finds, it is as if Keats examines both sides of every coin using the urn as a base of perfection and the mortal desires of man and the passage of time on nature as the flip side.
When we compare these two odes, we come to know that the choice of an urn as the subject is in itself interesting, a container designed to keep things safe from decay. However, by keeping something safe from harm by enclosing it, you also prevent it from being released. This symbolic struggle is a theme repeated throughout the poem.
The urn’s perfection is established in the opening lines being referred to first as a bride and then as a child, both of which imply a sexual undertone but by being unravished and fostered, the urn retains a God like purity, never tainted by the desires of man. The long vowel sounds of individual words such as ‘thou’ ‘still’, ‘bride’ and ‘quiet’ intrinsically imply a passage of time which the urn is unharmed by – it is still a child and therefore young, again separating it from the decay which both man and nature are subject to. Stanza one ends with a series of questions directed at the urn by the speaker as he imagines who and what the figures are.
Stanza two begins with another paradox:
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore ye soft pipes, play on:
Not to the sensual ear,…….
On contrasting level, this introduces the idea that the unheard songs of the piper on the urn and by extension all experience gained through means other than the physical senses, are more perfect and lasting than those understood through the ‘sensual ear’ as they withstand the passage of time and nature. This concept of the very best sound being one you can never physically hear but one you imagine is then applied to further images on the urn. Despite the fact that the ‘bold lover’ can ‘never, never’ kiss the ‘fair youth’, they are told not to grieve as being frozen on the urn, they nor the trees around them will ever fade – their love will last forever in anticipation of their kiss – the very best feeling comes from the imagination as with the unheard melodies.
If we further evaluate this comparison and contrast, we see that stanza three continues in the same vain of joy in discovering that time will never change the images on the urn. The repetition of the word ‘happy’ seems to imply a build up of joy that can only go on growing as it will never be winter, always spring and ‘for ever new’. Line 26, ‘For ever warm and still to be enjoyed’, again reminds the reader that the pleasure is always in the anticipation. The results of going beyond this point are then given with ‘breathing human passion’ leaving ‘….a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d, /A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.’ The satisfaction of passion only leaves man with a wearied physicality which the urn will never have to experience.
The fourth stanza returns to more images on the urn, this time of a sacrificial procession of people and the speaker begins to imagine the town which they have left empty. For the first time the speaker almost seems to relent on the perfection of never changing and, addressing the town directly, seems to hold real and generous feeling that it will always be ‘desolate’. ‘For ever more’ in line 38 now refers to emptiness. It is as if the vivid, fresh mood of stanza three has been reversed. The speaker’s interaction with the urn ends, however, as being ‘frozen’, it can offer no more answers, and there is nothing more that it can reveal.
In stanza five, the speaker ‘takes a step backwards’ and considers the urn in its entirety as an inanimate object and not in terms of the scenes on it. We are again reminded of the frailty of the human condition in line 46 with ‘When old age shall this generation waste’ and that the urn is safe from the ravages of time and human history. It will remain a ‘friend to man’ and finally comes the message that the urn has for us. The speaker has questioned the urn for four stanzas and the reply of ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’ answers none of the questions which have been posed. It tells us nothing about the individual features on the urn and seems to come from what the urn actually is. It is an object of beauty that the speaker has experienced. If we take it that the final two lines are spoken solely by the urn it is as if the urn is saying that the speaker has been asking all the wrong questions. The final paradox of the poem is that whilst maintaining its silence, the urn as still spoken and partially answered some questions although its response is not necessarily what was expected.
Like Ode to Autumn, the most distinctive feature of this ode is its rich imagery. Despite the ‘happy, happy’ tone of some parts of Ode on a Grecian urn, it is hard not to feel sadness for the joy that is only be anticipated and never actually felt. By being preserved from the passage of time, the characters on the urn are also trapped by it, never being able to reach for new joys in the future. Preservation from time forbids growth which is a key element to life itself. The themes of struggle between staying constant and changing, of joy leading to sadness, are echoed throughout Keats’ odes.
Beauty must die, joy is fleeting and the flower of pleasure will turn to poison. This seems to echo the sadness found in Grecian Urn. It is as if the joy of anticipation is overshadowed by the anticipation of the sadness which is sure to follow. In Grecian Urn, time always brings decay; here pleasure always leads to sorrow. These struggles however seem to become reconciled in Ode To Autumn. If the struggle with the urn’s preservation was symbolic of Keats’ own struggle to evade death, his overall feeling seems to have mellowed in his ode to autumn.
The selection of this particular season implicitly takes up the themes of temporality, mortality and change but whereas the urn’s perfection lay in being immune to the passage of time, autumn’s seems to be that it embraces it. Despite the impending coldness and desolation of winter, autumn is a time of plenty and warmth in this ode. In the urn, the speaker found joy in it staying spring forever, but now autumn is told not to think of the songs of spring but to recognize the music it has of its own. Not only has time not damaged the beauty of nature, it has actually allowed more beauty to develop, beauty which could not be possible within the limitations of the urn. Even the inconspicuous intellect of inevitable loss in the concluding line does no seem tragic as the birds will return as the seasonal cycle continues. Instead of joy always leading to sorrow, sorrow will now lead to joy. In Ode To Autumn there is a sense that Keats is displaying the lessons learnt from the previous odes and has come to realize that accepting mortality does not have to compromise an appreciation of beauty. By embracing the passage of time instead of rejecting it as in the urn, more wisdom has been gained.
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