Preview

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
391 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
"Ode on a Grecian Urn" Analysis
The "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats depicts the images and stories on a Grecian urn. Keats has the reader think about the difference between changeable real life and the immortal and permanent life on the urn. Also, the reader becomes mixed between observation of the art and participation in the art. The first stanza depicts the urn as an "unravish'd bride" and a "foster child" (1-2). These words describe the urn as unaffected by time and immortal. Keats also seems unable to distinguish between mortal and immortal, like the urn compared to real time, "Of deities or mortals, or of both?" (6). Stanza two shows Keats's torn feelings between the mortal and immortal world. He lists the advantages of the life on an urn, "She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, / For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!" (19-20), but if you read carefully, negative words pop-up within the advantages of the immortal urn, "Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, / Though winning near the goal- yet, do not grieve;" (16-17). Keats can't choose between real life and the immortal life of the urn. Keats settles that real life will leave you only with "A burning forehead, and a perching tongue" (30). Keats puts himself into the story of the urn in the fourth stanza. He shows the cruelty and pain of the sacrifice by comparing the sacrifice of a cow, to a "green altar" (32). This comparison shows the irony in the sacrifice because the red-blood color associated with sacrifice contrasts the green altar. Keats gets involved in the scene, and senses the pain of silence in the procession, "Will silent be; and not a soul to tell / Why thou art desolate, can e'er return" (39-40). The fifth stanza finally comes to a conclusion about the urn. He uses the phrase "Cold Pastoral" (45) to describe the urn. This phrase could either mean a pastoral story in marble, or a cold/sad story depicted. He then goes on to say although life goes on and people get old, "Thou shalt

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    To me, the poem appears to be comparing our youthful years as being as valuable as gold. We are to enjoy our time when we are young for it is the "…hardest hue to hold…" on to. It is also saying that our childhood years are very short and feels like "…but only so an hour…" As we grow older, our garden of "…Eden sank to grief…" The beginning of our life will quickly end as "…dawn goes down to day…" So in the end "…nothing gold can stay…" which refers to the end of our innocence. (All quotes taken from…

    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Keats, John. "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2014. .…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bruce Dawe

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Bruce Dawe uses this epigraph as a metaphor for birth and death. It tells us what the rest of the poem is about. A life cycle.... everyone’s life cycle.…

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The first line contains an image of a “bronze butterfly” sleeping on a trunk. This stagnant description of such a beautiful creature demonstrates a slowly moving life, one of which hasn’t achieved much. The trunk that the butterfly is sleeping on is colored black, representing the man’s missed opportunities to leave the farm. The next line portrays a leaf blowing down a ravine found behind an empty house. Obviously the empty house and the later heard cowbells in the distance (implying that the cows are leaving the farm) are clear images of the man’s loneliness. The speaker moves on to spot some horse manure. This dung, after being left for over a year, has dried and is turning into stones. The changing of this manure symbolizes the man’s changing into an old, lifeless man. Just as the manure does, the longer the man sits there and waits for something, the more prone he is to dry up and waste his life. Before the last line of the poem, the speaker mentions the setting sun and the evening that approaches as he lays back in his hammock. A chicken hawk, a well-known hunter, flies by the man and looks for his home, just as the man is looking for his home — or the place where he belongs. As the evening envelops the man, all of these apparently “beautiful” images (yet symbolically depressing messages) pushes the man to realize that his life has become…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the three stanza poem, the poet commemorates the first anniversary of seeing his beloved. He begins by using imagery from the political world: the royal court of “All Kings”. He juxtaposes this image with the supremacy of the “sun”, the true ruler of all mankind – without which the human race would die; this encompasses the highest concepts of the world. However, the poet then goes on to comment that even the mighty sun and the all-powerful kings have aged “a year” since he and his loved one “first one another saw”. Thus stating that the only thing not susceptible to “decay”; is the narrator and his loved one’s “love”: “our love hath no decay”. Their passion has “no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday” suggesting their mutual love is timeless and beyond the reach of mortality.…

    • 2003 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The two poems are similar in their corresponding feeling of dread for death. Using diction, Keats reflects on how he “may cease to be” and how he “may never live.” Similarly, Longfellow states that “[h]alf of [his] life is gone” and that the “years slip from” him. Both narrators then continue to lament their fears of not accomplishing everything they had once aspired to do. Keats uses an anaphora of “when” in order to illustrate the various and wide-ranging fears that are related to death. He also uses the anaphora of “before” in order to further accentuate his concerns of dying before he is able to accomplish various educational yearnings. Similarly, Longfellow also acknowledges his failure in fulfilling “the aspiration of [his] youth” or in building a “tower of song with lofty parapet.” This tower symbolizes a success of literary prowess and legacy the speaker had once hoped to wish for. He realizes that he will not accomplish everything he had once wanted. Both of these poems are ultimately similar in that they both illustrate men who fear that their lives will be coming to an end.…

    • 775 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Both Keats and Longfellow were poets during the Romantic period. The two compose poems in which they reflect on their inability to live up to their creative potential and the idea that death could intervene at any moment. Longfellow is disappointed in his failures and sees comfort in the past rather than an uncertain future. Moreover, Keats fears he won’t accomplish all that he wants, but sees possibility and realizes his grievous goals won’t be important after death. While Longfellow’s tone is fearful, Keats’ is appreciative and hopeful about what life has to offer right now. In both poems, the poets use the literary devices parallelism and symbolism, to depict their particular situation in their own lives, while also using diction with characteristics of romantic poetry, reflecting their time period.…

    • 692 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the sixth stanza, Keats completely overthrows rationality by having the speaker claim, “for a many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death” (Lines 51-52). If rationality is all about self-preservation, and if many philosophers looked down on suicide as a desire rather than any real need, Keats has created a speaker that is seemingly entranced by death, thinking it “rich to die, / To cease upon the midnight with no pain” (Lines 55-56). The transcendence of death from a physical plane to an entirely metaphysical plane is described as “an ecstasy,” which is entirely drawn from emotion (Line 58). Additionally, Keats mentions an auditory sense with the “high requiem,” but seemingly makes an allusion that either he is “a sod” since…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More 2012, Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood 1804, accessed 15 October 2012…

    • 1220 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poem has rhyming quatrains bringing a celebratory mood to the concept of death. It accentuates the temperate, collected nature of death which is then changed in the 4th stanza when the mood changes to a more supernatural, ghostly feel. In the last stanza, when the persona has moved into death, the imagery becomes abstract, revealing the veiled and mysterious nature of death.…

    • 1663 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this poem, Keats is writing about his fears in dying. He was dying he was afraid of three things, (1.) He was afraid he would cease to exist, what he means by this is he was afraid people would forget about him and the poems he wrote. (2.) He was afraid he would never be able to read anymore books, and (3.)…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Many people don’t realize what is happening in the world. People choose to ignore what is really important, for example, human suffering and death. Others can’t seem to forget loved ones that have passed away and of course people don’t know what happens after death. Both poems “Musee des Beaux Arts” and “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” themes are about death.…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The poem, “When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be”, by John Keats, uses metaphor, romantic imagery, and figurative language to reflect the speaker’s fear of dying without accomplishing what he aspires for in life which is success and fame in his writing and the love of one who will never love him back. In his writings, I think he is also saying to live you life to the fullest. To try to experience every little thing in life and to take advantage of it because we only live once. John Keats died at a young age from tuberculosis. The speaker, aware of his approaching death, expresses his fear that he will deprived of the three things he most greatly values: to write poetry of his many ideas, to experience the wondrous mystery of nature and gain…

    • 1421 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Auden funeral blues

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The first 3 lines in the third stanza of the poem are extended metaphors for the deceased used to describe how much he meant and how he was everything.…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poem has religious comments throughout and it reminds us of Jesus and how he came forward to sacrifice his life for humanity. In the end he is chained and dragged to his death which again commemorates the experience of…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays