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John Keats was born in London on 31 October 1795, the eldest of Thomas and Frances Jennings Keats’s four children. Although he died at the age of twenty-five, Keats had perhaps the most remarkable career of any English poet.
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Entering a debate dating back to Plato, Keats stakes a...
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Learn More. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" was written by the influential English poet John Keats in 1819. It is a complex, mysterious poem with a disarmingly simple set-up: an undefined speaker looks at a Grecian urn, which is decorated with evocative images of rustic and rural life in ancient Greece. These scenes fascinate, mystify, and excite the ...
- Summary
- Meaning
- Structure
- Literary Devices
- Themes
- Analysis, Stanza by Stanza
- Historical Context
- Similar Poetry
‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ by John Keats musesand celebrates art’s ability — in this case the images upon a piece of ancient Greek pottery — to capture and immortalize life’s beauty. In this poem, Keats (or at least, the speaker in the poem) mulls over the strange idea of the human figures carved into the urn. They are paradoxical figures, free from th...
The title of the poem ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ gives readers the central idea firsthand. It is a poetic representation of a piece of art, specifically the beautiful paintings on a Grecian urn. The poetic personahas encountered the urn with utter astonishment. He is rather astounded by the artist who has created this everlasting piece. The depictions ...
Like other entries in Keats’s series of “Great Odes of 1819,” ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ builds on a specific structure. Its closest formal cousin is probably ‘Ode on Indolence,’ though it contains a slightly different rhyme scheme. Split into five verses (stanzas) of ten lines each, and making use of fairly rigid iambic pentameter, ‘Ode on a Grecian U...
The major literary devices that are used in Keats’ ode are mentioned below: 1. Apostrophe:This ode begins with an apostrophe. Keats directly invokes the urn at the beginning. It also occurs in the following examples: “O mysterious priest” and “O Attic shape!” 2. Metaphor: Keats uses metaphors in “unravish’d bride of quietness,” “foster-child of sil...
Keats’ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ taps on the themes of the immortality of art, beauty, and romanticism. The main theme of this poem is the immortality of art. To depict this theme, Keats uses a Grecian urn and the emotive paintings on this piece. Each painting incites complex emotions in the speaker’s mind. He expresses his thoughts regarding the depi...
Stanza One
During this first verse, we see the narrator announcing that he is standing before a very old urn from Greece. The urn becomes the subject of ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’so all of the ideas and thoughts are addressed towards it. On the urn, we are told there are images of people who have been frozen in place for all of the time, as the “foster-child of silence and slow time.” The narrator also explains to us that he is discussing the matter in his role as a “historian” and that he’s wondering just...
Stanza Two
During the second verse, the reader is introduced to another image on the Grecian urn. In this scene, a young man is sitting with a lover, seemingly playing a song on a pipe as they are surrounded by trees. Again, the narrator’s interest is piqued, but he decides that the “melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter.” Unaffected by growing old or changing fashions, the notes the narrator imagines the man playing offer unlimited potential for beauty. While the figures will never grow o...
Stanza Three
The third stanza again focuses on the same two lovers but turns its attention to the rest of the scene. The trees behind the pipe player will never grow old and their leaves will never fall, an idea which pleases the narrator. Just like the leaves, the love shared between the two is equally immortal and won’t have the chanceto grow old and stale. Normal love between humans can languish into a “breathing human passion” and become a “burning forehead and a parching tongue,” a problem that young...
One of John Keats’ greatest poems ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ was pennedin May 1819. This piece was first published in “Annals of the Fine Arts of 1819” anonymously. His other best-known odes include: 1. ‘Ode on Indolence’ 2. ‘Ode on Melancholy’ 3. ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ 4. ‘Ode to Psyche’ The inspiration behind writing this poem came from two articles ...
Here is a list of some poems that similarly center on the themes depicted in John Keats’ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’. 1. ‘Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn’ by Tim Turnbull(Poems)– This poem is an in-depth description of the emotions a viewer feels upon seeing one of Perry’s ceramics. 2. ‘Now Art Has Lost its Mental Charms’ by William Blake(Bio | Poems) – It’s...
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Tracing of an engraving of the Sosibios vase by Keats. " Ode on a Grecian Urn " is a poem written by the English Romantic poet John Keats in May 1819, first published anonymously in Annals of the Fine Arts for 1819 [1] (see 1820 in poetry). The poem is one of the "Great Odes of 1819", which also include "Ode on Indolence", "Ode on Melancholy ...
Though Charles Swinburne called Keats’s early work “some of the most vulgar and fulsome doggrel ever whimpered by a vapid and effeminate rhymester in the sickly stage of whelphood,” he later wrote that “Ode on a Grecian Urn” was one of the poems “nearest to absolute perfection, to the triumphant achievement and accomplishment of the ...
Mar 23, 2020 · By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ is one of the best-known and most widely analysed poems by John Keats (1795-1821); it is also, perhaps, the most famous of his five Odes which he composed in 1819, although ‘ To Autumn ’ gives it a run for its money. The best way to analyse ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn ...
