John Keats’ ODE ON MELANCHOLY

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ODE ON MELANCHOLY by John Keats is the one of six poems that make up THE GREAT ODES all of which he had written in 1918. In contrast to the other odes, Keats himself fails to appear in the poem creating a divide between poet, author and reader; he speaks directly to the audience rather than to an abstract object or emotion. In doing this, Keats draws upon the readers own personal experience, since everyone – at some point – has experienced melancholy. Keats offers his insight on the topic by presenting two complementary ideas. First he suggests one should embrace such an emotion rather than shy away. Second he states that misery is the natural progression of a pleasurable state that has reached its conclusion therefore the two feelings cannot be separated from each other.

The first stanza contains information on how to cope with misery, namely actions or thoughts the reader should avoid. In line one Keats suggests the reader should not travel to the river of Lethe as “Lethe” is the name of the Greek spirit of forgetfulness and oblivion, with whom the river is identified. By this he means that if one were to rid themselves of melancholy, (by “forgetting”) the value of joy or happiness experienced prior would be negligible. In lines two through five Keats goes on to caution the reader to avoid thoughts of suicide via “Wolf’s bane” and/or “Yew-Berries” which are lethal to humans. In line six through eight Keats advises the reader to avoid association with demonic images as he says: “Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be / your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl / a partner in your sorrow's mysteries.” (6-8) In line nine Keats suggest fixating on such images of death and sadness “will come too drowsy” (9) and “drown [the] ...

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... Keats." Gittings, Robert. John Keats. London: Heinemann, 1968. 300.

Gleason, John B. a greek echo in ode on a recian urn. Vol. 42. Oxford University Press, 1991.

Murray, Christopher John. "Encyclopedia of the romanic era 1760-1850." Murray, Christopher John. Encyclopedia of the romanic era 1760-1850. Taylor and Francis, 2004. 723.

Robertson, John. Taxus baccata, yew - THE POISON GARDEN website. n.d. 12 Mar 2011 .

Sparknotes. SparkNotes: Keats’s Odes: Ode on Melancholy. n.d. 2011 SparkNotes LLC. 12 Mar 2011 .

Wikipedia Contributors. Lethe. 4 Feb 2011. 12 Mar 2011 .

—. Ode on Melancholy. 21 Jan 2011. 12 Mar 2011 .

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