What Is the Theme of Ode to Family Photographs

Andrew has a neat involvement in all aspects of poetry and writes extensively on the field of study. His poems are published online and in print.

John Keats

John Keats and A Summary of Ode On A Grecian Urn

Ode On A Grecian Urn focuses on art, dazzler, truth and time and is ane of Keats' five odes, considered to be some of the best examples of romantic verse. The four others are Ode To A Nightingale, Ode to Psyche, Ode On Melancholy, To Autumn - all completed in a flare-up of energy in 1819, 2 years before his death in Italia from consumption.

The poem is an case of ekphrasis, a Greek give-and-take meaning to describe a work of visual art in words.

• What makes Ode To A Grecian Urn of particular importance is its exploration of the idea that beautiful fine art transcends fourth dimension and reality, that dazzler is truth, interpreted through the poetic imagination.
• But this ode also raises the perplexing question of fine art and its effect on the human psyche. Humans can be deceived considering art, although enduring, could be a false ideal, like the notion of eternity.
• In the end, the narrative - the speaker'south approach to the urn - is turned on its head every bit the urn voices its wisdom to the speaker (and the reader and all humanity)...."Beauty is truth, truth dazzler,"

Keats believed that spontaneous sensations of the heart held the truth, equally opposed to the dry, reasoning mind. In a letter of the alphabet to a friend Benjamin Bailey on 22 November 1817 he wrote:

What the Imagination seizes as Dazzler must be truth - whether it existed before or non - for I have the same Idea of all our Passions equally of Love they are all in their sublime, creative of essential Dazzler -

It's of import to note that Keats likened the poetic imagination to a religious edifice. In some other letter of the alphabet to fellow poet Shelley he wrote:

My Imagination is a Monastry (sic) and I am its Monk.

This metaphorical approach to the artistic life of the imagination helped him create some of the all-time known romantic poems of his fourth dimension. In his letters to diverse friends and relatives he also developed ideas relating to the role of the poet.

Out of these correspondences came Keats' famous term 'negative capability', (the opposite to 'consequitive reasoning'), whereby the poet'south grapheme is completely absent from the verse form's content.

In an earlier alphabetic character to his brothers George and Thomas in December 1817 he explained:

I mean Negative Capability, that is when human is capable of beingness in Uncertainties,Mysteries, doubts, without whatever irritable reaching after fact and reason.'

Some scholars think this means that the poet has to be receptive, passive, which allows the imagination to practice the piece of work of the heart, transforming the initial feelings into verse.

This is what John Keats lived for, to escape the confines of 'barren' reality by trusting in his 'sensations of the heart', letting go of the self, becoming a receptor, guided by passion and spontaneous feeling. Of form, he notwithstanding had to discipline himself and form a coherent poem out of those initial stirrings.

Ode On A Grecian Urn was inspired by numerous visits of Keats to the British Museum in London. There he studied ancient artefacts from Greece, including the Elgin Marbles, and was enthused plenty past his friend the artist Benjamin Haydon, to depict one of these antique vases.

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Many researchers accept sought for the one specific Greek urn described in the poem, but no one has found it - information technology is idea that Keats used several sources for the various scenes, so creating an platonic urn for the ode.

Ode On A Grecian Urn

Line By Line Analysis of Ode On A Grecian Urn - Stanza 1

Lines ane - four

Here is the speaker addressing the urn, looking at the pictures and designs that decorate the surface of this classically shaped vessel. Keats is known to have visited the British Museum several times and took inspiration from Greek friezes and other exhibits.

No one tin can as however pinpoint the one urn that so inspired the immature poet just it is reasonable to suggest that he used artistic licence and put together scenes from unlike artefacts to create an platonic decorated urn.

• The first line has that word still in it, but which significant fits the sense? Is information technology an adverb or an adjective? Is the unravished bride only not moving or is she unchanged from her virgin state? Probably the latter meaning is the best fit.

The offset four lines contain personification - the unravished bride, the foster child and the Sylvan historian. The bride is married to quietness, the child is that of the bearding artist and time and the historian has the souvenir of the tale-teller.

Lines 5 - 10

The post-obit sestet has a total of 7 searching questions, the speaker uncertain virtually the figures being gods or mere mortals (changeless confronting perishable), and capable only of a reflex questioning.

As these questions build upwards, a sense of excitement is sparked. Note the language - mad pursuit... struggle to escape... wild ecstasy.

• The classical rhyme scheme and total rhymes imply a tight-knit closeness - despite the ironical quaternary line which suggests that the repose aboriginal urn outstrips poetry when it comes to telling tales.
• This commencement stanza ends up a bit of a puzzle for the reader because of all those questions but it sets the scene - ancient Greece, in myth or reality - and perhaps supplies some of the answers.

Ode On A Grecian Urn - Stanza 2

Lines 11 - xiv

These four lines relate to music and audio and contrast reality - the sounds that tin exist heard - with the abstract - in this case the art on the side of the urn.

• Again we take the duality, a comparison between life and fine art, and a judgement from the speaker who, at this point in the ode, thinks the abstract melodies 'sweeter'. This is a recurring theme of the ode and has its origins in the letters of Keats, who wrote:

'The excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their existence in shut relationship with Beauty and Truth.'

The speaker addresses the pipes directly, suggesting they play to the spirit 'ditties' (short simple songs) that cannot be heard. In that location'south an inherent paradox - how can you play music that has no sound? Well, it has to be imaginary music played to imaginary ears.

Lines 15 - 20

The sestet concentrates on the Fair youth and the speaker'due south reassurances that despite the possibility of him never existence able to kiss, he will dearest forever. There's some interesting symbolism at play here:

• the trees, which the youth stands beneath, correspond nature.
• the song, which the youth cannot go out, is a symbol of art and expression.
• the lover, representing unrequited dearest and potential fertility.

In the end, there is no demand for the youth to grieve (because he cannot consummate his love), the consolation of living forever in fine art being plenty to residue things out.

This second stanza, with its unusual syntax, slows the reader down with its many medial pauses and focuses on the pros and cons of the real and the abstract.

Stanza iii - Ode On A Grecian Urn

Lines 21 - 25

The happy stanza - with emphasis on the everlasting nature of the scenes depicted : the trees and their boughs, the melodist (musician) who tin can never play a dud or sometime notation. These lines reinforce the idea of timelessness and sustained joy, carried along on a basic iambic rhythm:

Ah, hap / py, hap / py boughs! / that can / non shed

Your leaves, / nor ev / er bid / the Spring / adieu;

And, hap / py mel / odist, unwear / ied,

Forev / er pi / ping songs / forev / er new;

Lines 25 - 30

Keats uses the word happy six times in the showtime 5 lines and the word forever five times, underlining the positive emotion the speaker invests in the immortal scenes before him.

There is no aging, in that location volition be no seasonal shift; the figures on the urn are free of time, pain, sickness and decease - a theme repeated in Ode to a Nightingale for case - and are destined to stay forever young.

There is a sexual chemical element here, in lines 25 - 27, where the gods or men are lusting subsequently the females (maidens) ...Forever warm and withal to be enjoyed,/Forever panting,..suggests that concrete dear is in the air, suspended for all time.

The last iii lines, 28 - 30, have caused much controversy over the years. Some believe them to exist a reflection of the state of the speaker, roused to excitement by the goings on on the urn:

That leaves a eye loftier-sorrowful and cloyed,

A burning brow, and a parching tongue.

The speaker'due south heart is affected as he is drawn into the charged scene in front end of him.

Or do these lines refer to the pictures on the urn themselves? The homo passion exists in those inhabiting the imagined world of the urn and they are discipline to the physical effects of all this wild ecstasy.

Ode On A Grecian Urn - Stanza 4

Lines 31 - twoscore

This stanza offers a new scene - townsfolk and a priest leading a heifer (female person moo-cow non yet calved) to a sacrificial place. The whole stanza has a questioning tone, as if the speaker is non quite certain of just who is behind this activeness.

The heifer is to be sacrificed and represents the flesh and blood of nature; the ritual is religious (in a pagan sense?) and involves the whole of the community, a shared commitment to the gods.

The fact that anybody attends means that the town is emptied and it is this fact that prompts the enquiry. The silence of the town matches the silence of the urn; the speaker voicing concern that no one will be able to explain merely why this has happened.

And so the boondocks is empty and will remain that way 'forevermore'; and the questions will never be answered.

Again the iambic rhythms persist, the ten syllables per line a solid foundation (except for line 32 which has eleven)

Ode On A Grecian Urn - Stanza five

Lines 41 - 50

This stanza deals initially with the urn itself - the Cranium shape (classic vase shape from Attica, in ancient Greece) and the woven blueprint (brede) - merely ends up with the situation flipped on its caput every bit the urn is given a voice with which to address the speaker (and all humanity)

In line 44, following a clarification of the urn itself, the speaker finally reveals something virtually the effect the pictures and scenes accept had on his heed. The conclusion is that the urn 'dost tease united states out of thought', that is, the urn is just like the notion of eternity...nosotros humans can be deceived past the idea of living forever, as the speaker has been deceived into thinking the scenes can terminal forever.

The speaker states 'Cold Pastoral!' - in an accusatory manner. The urn is nada but cold country earth shaped so to attract but notwithstanding it will prevail. When generations accept passed, the urn will persist and in this sense it is to be welcomed as a friend.

Lines 49 - 50

A big debate rages among scholars...in an actual manuscript written past John Keats' brother George, the last two lines are in quotation marks which means that the urn speaks all of these words to human being (to humanity).

In the published copy only the words "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," are given over to the urn.

So which is correct?

Well, in that location is no definitive answer simply information technology seems likely that both lines are the vox of urn. Whatsoever the truth, the fact is that the five short words have become synonymous with the name of John Keats and this ode.

Within the confines of the ode beauty may well be truth and vice versa but in real life humans often seek a truth across art and the imagination, reaching for the realms of religious experience and transcendence.

Keats' ode is a reminder of the age of romanticism and the idea that fine art could be the salvation of humankind, an expression of deep spirituality. The ode explores Keats' notion of fine art existence forever beautiful, beyond the grasp of time and inevitable disuse, unlike we humans, creatures of flesh and blood, struggling with day to twenty-four hour period reality.

What Are The Literary Devices Used in Ode On A Grecian Urn?

The literary devices used in Ode On A Grecian Urn include:

Alliteration

When two words shut together in a line start with the similar sounding consonants, they are alliterative, which adds texture and phonetic interest to the poem. For example:

silence and wearisome time.....foliage-fringed legend.....ye soft pipes, pay on....though thou hast not thy....heart high-sorrowful....Pb'st yard that heifer lowing...Of marble men and maidens.

Assonance

When two words close together in a line have similar sounding vowels. Again, the sounds combine to produce repeat and resonance:

The 2d line is a classic:

Thou foster child of silence and irksome fourth dimension,

As is line thirteen:

Non to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,

Caesura

A caesura is a pause in a line caused unremarkably by punctuation in a short or medium length line. The reader has to pause for a fraction. In this poem, the second stanza has fifteen, which ways the rhythm is broken upward, fragmented, so the reader is slowed down and the lines become quite naturally more complex.

This line, 12, is a good example:

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Two semi-colons and two commas are effective and pause upwardly the natural menstruation.

Chiasmus

Is a device where two or more clauses are upwards-ended or flipped to produce an artistic effect with regards significant, as in line 49:

"Dazzler is truth, truth beauty,"

Enjambment

When a line is not punctuated and runs on into the side by side information technology is said to be enjambed. It allows the verse form to flow in certain parts and challenges the reader to move swiftly on from one line to the next with the significant intact.

There are several lines with enjambment in Keats' ode, each stanza having at to the lowest degree one line. In stanza four for case lines 38 and 39 flow on into the last:

And, picayune boondocks, thy streets forevermore

Volition silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

Personification

The kickoff 3 lines apply personification, giving man attributes to the urn. And then:

unravished bride (virgin bride 'married' to the urn'south quietness)

foster child ( wrought from the earth by the Greek creative person, long dead)

Sylvan historian (able to tell the ancient tale).

What is The Metre (Meter in American English) of Ode On A Grecian Urn?

Ode On A Grecian Urn has a basic iambic pentameter template but many lines are altered metrically which helps vary the rhythm and besides places special emphasis on certain words.

A proficient case is the outset line. Information technology has 4 iambic feet (daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM - unstressed syllable followed by stressed syllable) simply the fifth foot is a pyrrhic, with ii unstressed syllables, which underlines the word quietness.

Thou still / unrav / ish'd bride / of qui / etness,
One thousand fost / er-child / of si / lence and / slow time,
Sylvan / histo / rian, who canst / thus express
A periodery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tem / pe or / the dales / of Ar / cady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad / purarrange? / What strug / gle to / escape?
What pipes / and tim / brels? What / wild ec / stasy?

And note the last line of this offset stanza. The get-go and second feet are iambic, the remaining 3 a pyrrhic, a spondee and a pyrrhic. That spondee is a double stress, a complete contrast to the enveloping unstressed pyrrhics. This produces a loud bump and breaks up the steady beat out of the previous two lines.

What Is The Rhyme Scheme of Ode On A Grecian Urn?

Ode On A Grecian Urn has an unusual rhyme scheme because it changes in certain stanzas:

Stanzas 1 and 5 : ababcdedce

Stanza 2 : ababcdeced

Stanzas iii and four : ababcdecde

which is a quatrain followed past 2 tercets or a sestet. The poem'south layout is also geared to the rhyme scheme, with some lines indented by 1 space or two:

a and c lines are unindented;

b and d lines are indented by i space;

e lines are indented past ii spaces.

© 2019 Andrew Spacey

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Source: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Poem-Ode-On-A-Grecian-Urn-by-John-Keats

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