There is no life without death, and no death without life. Life and death mutually define each other and without one, the other would have no meaning. Keats was an English poet very concerned with death and human mortality. His poems usually deal with his struggle to accept his own mortality and his attempt to flee from reality into a world of immortality. This poem, “To Autumn”, which Keats wrote after observing an autumn evening, is seemingly simplistic and purely descriptive. However, underneath the surface, Keats has finally begun to accept the difficult truth that death is inevitable. Through the poem “To Autumn”, Keats urges humankind to accept death as a natural part of human life and to recognize the beauty in death. The first stanza is crowded with sensual and concrete images of nature and its ripeness during the first stages of Autumn. Autumn is characterized as a “season of…mellow fruitfulness” (1). It is a season that “bend[s] with apples the mossed cottage-trees” (5), “fill[s] all fruit with ripeness to the core” (6), “swell[s] the gourd, and plump[s] the hazel shells” (7), and “set[s] budding more” (8). The verbs that Keats uses represent the bustling activity of Autumn and also reflect the profusion of growth. Autumn also acts as the subject of all the verbs, indicating its dynamic behavior. Furthermore, the multitude of these images depicting the ripening of nature contributes to the sense of abundance that characterizes the first stanza. The stanza also contains many short phrases, again calling up images of abundance. Keats, through his use of sensual imagery, draws readers into the real world where there will ultimately be decay and death. The sound devices in this stanza further develop the sensual imagery and... ... middle of paper ... ...ecian Urn”, “To Autumn” takes place in the real world and does not mention immortality. In “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, Keats attempts to grasp the apparent immortality of the urn he is observing. He envies the timelessness of the figures on the urn and the happiness those figures seem to enjoy. Keats also envies the nightingale in “Ode to a Nightingale” and its natural happiness that is only possible because it transcends time. Trapped in time, Keats believes that he can only ever be happy through intoxication, which provides an escape from the real world. Until he wrote “To Autumn”, Keats considers immortality and timelessness as the keys to experience happiness and the beauty of the world. However, in “To Autumn”, Keats remains in reality, far from the improbable ideas of eternal life, and seems to both accept death and find the intrinsic beauty death can bring to life.
Keats’ poetry explores many issues and themes, accompanied by language and technique that clearly demonstrates the romantic era. His poems ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Bright Star’ examine themes such as mortality and idealism of love. Mortality were common themes that were presented in these poems as Keats’ has used his imagination in order to touch each of the five senses. He also explores the idea that the nightingale’s song allows Keats to travel in a world of beauty. Keats draws from mythology and christianity to further develop these ideas. Keats’ wrote ‘Ode To A Nightingale’ as an immortal bird’s song that enabled him to escape reality and live only to admire the beauty of nature around him. ‘Bright Star’ also discusses the immortal as Keats shows a sense of yearning to be like a star in it’s steadfast abilities. The visual representation reveal these ideas as each image reflects Keats’ obsession with nature and how through this mindset he was able
The constant process of life and death, driven by an indestructible progression of time, explains the attitude of carpe diem expressed in three poems focused on human love being a fickle matter. Within the poems “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick, and “Youth’s the Season Made for Joys” by John Gay, the concept of how a shy attitude towards the inevitable end of all life is exposed as an inherently useless view. Nevertheless, though their primary themes and ideas of this constant procession of time are obviously expressed, the manner in which they do this, through figurative language and imagery, is the main point in which each of these three poems can be contrasted and examined
Time is endlessly flowing by and its unwanted yet pending arrival of death is noted in the two poems “When I Have Fears,” by John Keats and “Mezzo Cammin,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Keats speaks with no energy; only an elegiac tone of euphoric sounds wondering if his life ends early with his never attained fame. He mentions never finding a “fair creature” (9) of his own, only experiencing unrequited love and feeling a deep loss of youth’s passion. Though melancholy, “Mezzo Cammin,” takes a more conversational tone as Longfellow faces what is commonly known as a midlife crisis. The two poems progressions contrast as Keats blames his sorrow for his lack of expression while Longfellow looks at life’s failures as passions never pursued. In spite of this contrast, both finish with similar references to death. The comparable rhyme and rhythm of both poems shows how both men safely followed a practiced path, never straying for any spontaneous chances. The ending tones evoking death ultimately reveal their indications towards it quickly advancing before accomplish...
John Keats’s illness caused him to write about his unfulfillment as a writer. In an analysis of Keats’s works, Cody Brotter states that Keats’s poems are “conscious of itself as the poem[s] of a poet.” The poems are written in the context of Keats tragically short and painful life. In his ...
Throughout Keats’s work, there are clear connections between the effect of the senses on emotion. Keats tends to apply synesthetic to his analogies with the interactions with man and the world to create different views and understandings. By doing this, Keats can arouse different emotions to the work by which he intends for the reader to determine on their own, based on how they perceive it. This is most notable in Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, for example, “Tasting of Flora, and Country Green” (827). Keats accentuates emotion also through his relationship with poetry, and death.
middle of paper ... ... He forgets about the impossible, and being immortal and being alone, but rather embraces the temporary and exhilarating. Keats presents his feelings on how he no longer wishes for impossible goals, and how it is much more preferable to enjoy life as much as possible. It is of no use longing for things we cannot have, and so we must learn to live with the myriad of things we already have, of which one in particular appeals to Keats: the warmth of human companionship and the passion of love.
John Keats is an early nineteenth century Romantic poet. In his poem “When I have Fears that I May Cease to Be,” Keats makes excellent use of a majority of poetry elements. This sonnet concentrates merely on his fear of death and his reasons for fearing it. Though Keats’ emphasizes his greatest fear of death, he offers his own resolution by asserting that love and fame lacks any importance. Keats uses articulate wording to exemplify his tone, while using images, figures of speech, symbols, and allegory to illustrate his fear of death. His use of rhythm, sounds, and patters also contribute to his concentration of fear and the effects on his life. As one of the most famous Romantic poets, John Keats utilizes the elements of poetry in “When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be” to convey his fears and allow the reader to realize how much these fears affect him.
In Keats “Ode to a Nightingale” we see the sense embodied through a variety of different literary techniques and in particular his use of synaesthesia imagery. The dejected downhearted nature of the poem promotes emotion in the reader even before noting poetic devices at work. The structure of the meter is regular and adds to the depth of this poe...
Literature, as does philosophy and art, follows a continuous wave; with every the crest of a new era, there is a trough from the pervious era. When a new age of style and ideals surfaces, the ideas are often directly against the ideas of the previous period. The Romantic period was an era of emotion, it was no longer about logic or preciseness as it was during the time of Enlightenment period. Both artists and poets of the Romantic period, like John Keats, focused on the expression of feeling and demonstrated an affinity for nature. In John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” Keats brings to life images displayed on an ancient urn. The images, that become displayed in our minds, are of beauty, love, and happiness, all which have been conserved throughout the years despite the rise and fall of civilizations and kingdoms. This creation parallels the seemingly ideal and eternal world depicted on the urn, with the world Keats was born to live in. The truth that is extracted from this poem provides both answers and mysteries that, as T.S. Elliot explains, can either be seen as a “blemishing” factor or something truly profound. If it had not been for the upbringing Keats had growing up, his work would not have captured the same mastery it does now that is seen in his manipulation of sound, and use of rhetorical devices.
From the very title we find that this “Ode” is different. It is the “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” as opposed to “Ode to a Nightingale,” or “Ode to Psyche.” The word “on” provides a little more interpretive flexibility. On one hand, the word on can be taken to mean “about” or “concerning,” suggesting that this is an ode about a Grecian Urn. This is in fact true. However, it can also suggest that this ode is taking place quite literally on the Grecian Urn—the ode itself would therefore not be Keats’ own poetry, but the actual Urn. This interpretation is backed up by in Stanza I. when Keats calls the Urn “Sylvan historian, who canst thus express / A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme” (lines 3-4). The urn can express the tale more sweetly because it presents the ode without the passage of time. Thus all the paintings are forever frozen and ever becoming, and any fulfillment would betray potential.
Arguably one of John Keats’ most famous poems, “Ode to a nightingale” in and of itself is an allegory on the frail, conflicting aspects of life while also standing as a commentary on the want to escape life’s problems and the unavoidability of death. Keats’ poem utilizes a heavy amount of symbolism, simile and allusion to idealize nature as a perfect, almost mystical, world that holds no problems while using imagery taken from nature, combined with alliteration and assonance, to idealize the dream of escape from the problems life often presents; more specifically, aging and our inevitable deaths by allowing the reader to feel as if they are experiencing the speaker’s experience listening to the nightingale.
In order to experience true sorrow one must feel true joy to see the beauty of melancholy. However, Keats’s poem is not all dark imagery, for interwoven into this poem is an emerging possibility of resurrection and the chance at a new life. The speaker in this poem starts by strongly advising against the actions and as the poem continues urges a person to take different actions. In this poem, the speaker tells of how to embrace life by needing the experience of melancholy to appreciate the true joy and beauty of
In the poem “To Autumn” the initial impression that we get is that Keats is describing a typical Autumn day with all its colors and images. On deeper reading it becomes evident that it is more than just that. The poem is rather a celebration of the cycle of life and acceptance that death is part of life.
The importance of this book is that it contains some of the works of poetry which were carried out by William Yeats. Arguably, the most salient feature in the book is the attempt at portraying the shift that characterized Yeats in his work, so that his works are arranged almost chronologically to underscore this standpoint. Works that depict him as a bard of the Celtic Twilight, reviving Rosicrucian symbols and legends are the most frontal. These are followed up by works which show the shift away from plush romanticism. The same are exhibited by the heavy presence of incantatory rhythms such as “I will arise and go… and go to Innisfree”. The same is seen in the lyrics, “as passionate and cold as the dawn”.
...storal” (45, p.1848). The urn’s eternity only exists artistically and does not reflect human life because only the urn “shou remain” forever (47, p.1848). Keats contrasts the ephemeral nature of human life with the longevity of the urn. In last two lines, Keats declares, “beauty is truth, truth beauty” (29, p.1848) embodying both sides of his perspective. By establishing a relationship between beauty and truth, Keats acknowledges that like truth, the beauty of the Grecian urn is unchangeable and that the ability accept reality is beautiful.