Mood and Theme in “Ode on a Grecian Urn” The first stanza of a poem plays a vital role in developing the theme and mood of a poem. It gives insight on what the poem is going to be about. In John Keats work, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, a poem describing the life of a picture on an old urn, the first stanza of the poem does just that. The first stanza is written in Keats poem is an introduction to the old stories and pictures the urn displays: “Thou still unravish 'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring 'd legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods …show more content…
The word “bride” (1) is defined as “a woman about to be married” (“bride n.p.”), and in this case married to quietness. Marriage is a lifelong commitment and Keats uses this symbol to represent the bride for the rest of her life. He uses the term bride to push the point across that the woman on the urn will be forcefully mute for the remainder of her life due to her marriage to quietness. Keats shows the theme, truth is beauty, by contradicting the right to speak the truth. He uses personification in the first verse by showing the marriage between a woman and an adjective, when stating that the bride is married to quietness. This is personification because the human bride cannot legally marry “quietness”(1). The second verse uses alliteration and personification as well. Keats personifies the “foster-child” and gives it the parents of “silence and slow time” (2). The parent being silence displays the inability to speak the truth and the forced action of being quiet. The second parent “slow time” (2) represents the drawn out life the bride will be living in the absence of sound. The alliteration sound of “silence and slow time” (2) enables the poem to flow freely, stand out, and put an emphasis on the line. The first two stanzas both use personification to push across the hidden theme of the …show more content…
The fourth line reads “[a] flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme” (4). The words “flower” and “sweetly” appeal to the sense of smell and lighten the mood of the poem. When a flower is brought up into conversation it immediately brightens the mood. Keats lightened the mood by adding the natural imagery of a happy subject such as a flower. Before these verses were added, the first stanza of the poem was rather dark and did not carry the theme as well as it does after the imagery was added. The imagery not only illuminates the poem but emphasizes the word beautiful in the theme. Keats also uses nature imagery in line five, when he states “what leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape” (5). This adds to the natural imagery in the verse before and lightens the mood even more. The first stanza is written in Keats poem is an introduction to the stories found on the urn and the imagery helps to lighten the dark
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
There are multiple examples of visual imagery in this poem. An example of a simile is “curled like a possum within the hollow trunk”. The effect this has is the way it creates an image for the reader to see how the man is sleeping. An example of personification is, “yet both belonged to the bush, and now are one”. The result this has is how it creates an emotion for the reader to feel
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
The poet begins by describing the scene to paint a picture in the reader’s mind and elaborates on how the sky and the ground work in harmony. This is almost a story like layout with a beginning a complication and an ending. Thus the poem has a story like feel to it. At first it may not be clear why the poem is broken up into three- five line stanzas. The poet deliberately used this line stanzas as the most appropriate way to separate scenes and emotions to create a story like format.
Readers of Keats’ poetry have long spoken of the enchanting power of his language, and in one of his most famous works, “The Eve of St. Agnes”; the reader is positively enchanted by the protagonist, Madeline. She’s pure, virginal, positively otherworldly, and “seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest” (Keats 77). Madeline also displays trappings of religious symbols throughout the work. She is called a “Mission’d spirit and a “seraph fair” (Keats 72-3). The reader could scarcely read the poem without immediately associating Madeline with the most divine cherubs in Heaven. Her virginity is repeatedly mentioned and referenced; even her room, or the maiden’s chamber, is “silken, hush’d, and chaste” (Keats 76). Young Porphyro with “heart on fire” for Madeline simply couldn’t resist this angel (Keats 71). One might connect that, similarly, young John Keats could not resist his own angel, Fanny Brawne. At the time of the composition of “The Eve of St. Agnes” Keats was heavy in the thralls of his engagement to Fanny. In her book, John Keats: The Making of a Poet, Aileen Ward proclaims “The Eve of St. Agnes” to be "the first confident flush of [Keats's] love for Fanny Brawne" (Ward 310). However, if Madeline is meant to be a manifestation of Fanny Brawne, Keats must not think of his fiancé as merely an angel, but something more.
...tion between loneliness and death. The first three lines of each stanza in this poem generally have four feet, while the last line have only two or three. This change calls attention to the last line, in which Keats makes references to images.
The repetition of the... ... middle of paper ... ... ld of art and literature. Since the "marriage", the parent generation, is already dead or dying, therefore every new creation is now also afflicted with disease and condemned to death. Consequently this means the end of hope for a renewal of society, but since the stanza begins with the word "how", this is also a voice of accusation and a demand for change.
... imagery, as both meanings could describe Keats longing, as he could wish to remain for as long as possible in the embrace of his lover, but also how he could wish to continue to hear her ‘tender-taken breath’, in which the alliteration portrays his lover as beautiful and inviting, further showing how Keats now prefers the life of reality. He forgets about the impossible, and being immortal and being alone, but rather embraces the temporary and exhilarating.
The first literary device that can be found throughout the poem is couplet, which is when two lines in a stanza rhyme successfully. For instance, lines 1-2 state, “At midnight, in the month of June / I stand beneath the mystic moon.” This is evidence that couplet is being used as both June and moon rhyme, which can suggest that these details are important, thus leading the reader to become aware of the speaker’s thoughts and actions. Another example of this device can be found in lines 16-17, “All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies / (Her casement open to the skies).” These lines not only successfully rhyme, but they also describe a woman who
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
This poem was about very religious. In this poem she talks about her admiration of God and how she and all humans are humbled by God's creations. She says, "The higher on the glistening sun I gazed. Whose beams was shaded by the leafy tree; The more I looked, the ore I grew amazed, and softly said, 'What glory like to thee?' Soul of this world, this universe's eye, No wonder some made thee a deity; had I not better known, alas, the same had I". This quote means that a tree because of its beauty amazes her. Also, she is saying that the thing responsible for creating such a thing must just as beautiful if not the most beautiful on the earth.
This poem helps us to recognize and appreciate beauty through its dream sequence and symbolism. The poem opens with the Dreamer describing this
Keats begins with the poem with a question, “O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering?”. He does this to ask the “knight-at-arms” what has made him this weak, this pale, dying in a field somewhere and the knight’s answer takes up the rest of the poem. The imagery in my visual representation depicting a heart broken and weakened by the icy, deceptive lips of ‘femme fatale’ is both powerful and highly symbolic because it expresses the coldness and the deviousness of the deceptive witch that has weakened the knight. The icy cold lips of the witch symbolise her deceptive nature, and the way she tricks the knight into a deathly sleep, which is also visualised in my representation. His deathly sleep is also represented in a ‘before/after’ representation in which an image of the beautiful woman in the meadows is shown, and after his nightmare, the icy cold, desolate and dark hill side upon which the knight awakes is shown in the neighbouring image. The speaker says that the "sedge" have all died out from around the lake, and "no birds sing”. We can deduce that it 's autumn since all the birds have migrated, and the plants have “withered." The speaker continues to address this sick, depressed "knight at arms." He asks about the "lily" on the knight 's "brow," suggesting that the knight 's face is pale like a lily.
The poem begins with a narrator questioning a Knight at arms. The Knight is seen wandering around lifelessly and listlessly. Not only is he lifeless, but, around him, the whole forest is dying as well. "The sedge has withered from the Lake/ And no birds sing!" (Keats, p506 lines 3-4) The Knight is feverish, a word Keats uses to depict starvation and intense longing. The color on the Knight's cheeks is fading like the flora.
Examining the definition of “ode,” there is a strong connection between song and poetry—an ode being “a poem intended to be sung or one written in a form originally used for sung performance”--, and within both poems the inspiration of each narrator is described in terms of creating poems meant to be sung. Essentially, Keats’s poem plays with the concept of the poetic form of an ode on a couple of different levels. Firstly, the nightingale, in stark contrast to the narrator’s feelings of despair, is presented as a “light-winged Dyrad of the trees, / In some melodious plot / … Singest of summer in full-throated ease” (“Ode to a Nightingale 7-8, 10). By introducing the nightingale in this manner, and by referring to it twice with musical adjectives—referencing its “melodious plot” and how the bird “singest of summer”—establishes this element of song as the focal point of the nightingale. Similarly, the goddess Psyche is first introduced by means of song, as the narrator begins “Ode to Psyche” by singing, and asking her to hear “these tuneless number” (Ode to Psyche 1) and to “pardon thy secrets should be sung” (3). The musical references to Psych continue in the third stanza, as the narrator laments the inclusion of Psyche into the Greek pantheon, he reveals