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John Keats

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John Keats
Keats has been praised for the "richness of his language and imagery". Discuss what contribution you find this richness makes the effects of TWO poems.

Keats uses language techniques, imagery and sound devices to help enhance the "richness" in his two odes, "Ode on Indolence" and "Ode on Melancholy". Keats uses simile, pathetic fallacy, metaphor, personification, transferred epithet and oxymoron to enhance the imagery. Keats also uses sibilance and alliteration to help create the mood of both poems.

In "Ode on Indolence" Keats uses simile to describe the figures coming to life in his imagination, "They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn" this creates an ominous atmosphere and the figures seem silent and alluring. This shows that indolence can creep up on you. Keats also uses simile to describe the effect poetry has on his life, "For Poesy – no, - she has not a joy – At least for me,- so sweet as drowsy noons," the readers discover that Keats finds his love and talent of poetry to also be a cause for his pain. This is paradoxical as poetry is his greatest love yet also something that causes him immense pain.

Keats also uses pathetic fallacy in "Ode on Indolence" to create a mysterious and unhappy mood "The morn was cloudy" indicating that Keats was not feeling very joyous or active at the beginning of the day and that things are lurking at the back of his mind. As we discover later in the ode, he had many worries in his mind of three main things, love, ambition and poetry.

Keats uses metaphor in "Ode on Indolence", "My sleep has been embroider'd with dim dreams", to give an image of softness and to give an image of beauty and relaxation which is ultimately what indolence does to someone.

Keats also uses alliteration to enhance the richness in "Ode on Indolence". "Stirring shades, and baffled beams:" showing a hindrance in nature as the light is not completely being shone through. On a personal level showing that Keats is in darkness with

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