Season and Autumn

Autumn The first paragraph in John Keats‘ poem “To Autumn“ is proposing us a picture of the season. Contrary to popular image of an approach to a stage where everything is covered in snow and resting, the poem shows the warm side of this seson. The fertile and mature side of it. There is also a partial picture of the coming cold weather but the majority of the poem is focused on the remains of Summer and warmth reflected in Autumn. The description starts with a general characteristics of the season as it is, the word “season“ itself on the very beginning . We can sense some sort of Indian summer throughout the whole paragraph. There is “Summer“ as a season mentioned on the last line accompanied by the verb “o’er-brimm’d“ which is showing a sort of an overtaking of the Autumn days by Summer again. “Warm days“ (10) preced which makes a connection with Summer again, evoking a thought of a sunny day typical for this season. „Sun“ itself, mentioned on the second line is portrayed as “Close bosom-friend“ (2) of Autumn, underlining the relation between the two seasons, Summer reflecting and echoing in Autumn as Indian summer. Another aspect portrayed in the poem is fertility showed to the reader through whatever Autumn can offer to us on the feild of food and shows us a sort of maturity in it. It begins with “fruitfullness“ (1) and then the vocabulary connected to fruit in general- “fruit the vines“ (4), “apples“ (5) or “fruit“ (6) alone. Then again, the author uses the word “kernel“ (8), „fill“ (6) and „o’ver-brimm‘d“ (11) and the expression “plump the hazel shells“ (7) to depicture some sort of fulfilment as the climax of the season and an approach to winter again. This leads us to the idea of fertility in the poem. The verses are filled with mentions of various words indicating some kind of maturity and ripe beginning with “fruitfullness“ (1) and throught “load“ (3) and “ripeness“ (6). Later in the paragraph, “to set budding more/And still more“ (8-9) shows us that this maturity isn’t over just yet and there’s still some place to move to, indicating that the season doesn’t necessarily mean the end of what has started in Summer or earlier in Spring. The author is showing us a part of Autumn which is not over yet but it’s not at the beginning. It’s somewhere in the middle and it’s on it’s way to the highest peak of the season. Life as a part of this season is also present. The usual picture of Autumn includes all animals and plants starting to prepare for Winter and hiding already, while in this paragraph, the life is present in it’s full form and beauty mentioned all over the paragraph “flowers“ (9) and “bees“ (9). There are also certain traces of the winter itself and coldness that accompanies it. The word “mists“ (1) literally describes chilly Autumn mornings which is one of the first signs that Summer is over and Winter is coming. This idea is, after several lines of warmth, underlined by the word “clammy“ (11). The idea of a contrast to the heat of Summer days is accentuated by the word “moss‘d“ (5) which creates the impression of a kind of a bit darker, wetter and colder place. To summarize, John Keats in the first paragraph of his poem shows us the idea of Indian summer as an echo of Summer itself in Autumn with a small hint of the upcoming Winter portraying the leaving season as some sort of person who has aged and is more mature and wise but still fertile and full of live. It is a picture of the past and the future and of the warmth and cold colliding in one picture.