Keats's Treatment of Nature
Keats’s treatment of nature in ‘Ode To Autumn’.
The Striking Beauty of Autumn
This poem was written by Keats in September, 1819. He was greatly struck by the beauty of the season. The air was fine, and there was a temperate sharpness about it. The weather seemed “chaste”. The stubble-fields looked better than they did in spring. Keats was so impressed by the beauty of the weather that he recorded his mood in the form of this ode.
The Progress of Thought and Feeling in the Poem
Here is a poem in which a season has been personified and made to live. In the first stanza, the poet describes the fruits of autumn, the fruits coming to maturity in readiness for harvesting. In the second stanza, autumn is personified as a woman present at the various operations of the harvest and at cider-pressing. In the last stanza, the end of the year is associated with sunset; the songs of spring are over and night is falling, but there is no feeling of sadness because autumn has its own songs. The close of the ode, though solemn, breathes the spirit of hope.
Its Sensuousness
The bounty of Autumn has been described with all its sensuous appeal. The vines suggesting grapes, the apples, the gourds, the hazels with their sweet kernel, the bees suggesting honey—all these appeal to our senses of taste and smell. The wholelandscape is made to appear fresh and scented. There is great concentration in each line of the first stanza. Each line is like the branch of a fruit-tree laden with fruit to the breaking-point. With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Its Vivid Imagery
The
The Striking Beauty of Autumn
This poem was written by Keats in September, 1819. He was greatly struck by the beauty of the season. The air was fine, and there was a temperate sharpness about it. The weather seemed “chaste”. The stubble-fields looked better than they did in spring. Keats was so impressed by the beauty of the weather that he recorded his mood in the form of this ode.
The Progress of Thought and Feeling in the Poem
Here is a poem in which a season has been personified and made to live. In the first stanza, the poet describes the fruits of autumn, the fruits coming to maturity in readiness for harvesting. In the second stanza, autumn is personified as a woman present at the various operations of the harvest and at cider-pressing. In the last stanza, the end of the year is associated with sunset; the songs of spring are over and night is falling, but there is no feeling of sadness because autumn has its own songs. The close of the ode, though solemn, breathes the spirit of hope.
Its Sensuousness
The bounty of Autumn has been described with all its sensuous appeal. The vines suggesting grapes, the apples, the gourds, the hazels with their sweet kernel, the bees suggesting honey—all these appeal to our senses of taste and smell. The wholelandscape is made to appear fresh and scented. There is great concentration in each line of the first stanza. Each line is like the branch of a fruit-tree laden with fruit to the breaking-point. With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Its Vivid Imagery
The