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Art In John Keats's Ode On A Grecian Urn

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Debates over the capacities and limits of the art in the matter of expressing a thing as itself induce many people to question whether art is something equal to the real or not. In his poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn, John Keats also questions the concept of art in such a way that he sounds almost like Plato, because from the very beginning, he evaluates an artwork, which is an urn, a sculpture, in terms of the reality it tries to reflect. However, even though he sounds like Plato, at the end, he concludes that art should be something to be praised. This change in his way of thinking, of course, would disappoint Plato. In this paper, I will show you how Keats contradicts with Platonic ideas upon the mimetic nature of art and how he ends up elevating …show more content…

He mentions some melodies that he claims, “are sweet, but those unheard” (11). Why are they unheard? Because it is a sculpture and it can only represent something as visual. You cannot hear the sounds of those pipes, but you can only guess. At that point, I suppose, Plato would smile because Keats ‘description supports his idea. “Again”, Plato could say, “art fails to reflect the reality”. However, within the same lines, Keats does something opposite. Although he cannot hear, he claims that those unheard sounds are “are sweeter” and “more endear'd”. Plato would be shocked. “But why”, he probably would ask. Then Keats answers, those melodies are sweeter because they play on “not to the sensual ear”(13) but to “the spirit ditties of no tone”(14) So, Keats claims that even though the sculpture fails to satisfy the sense of hearing, still it manages to reach directly to the mind. As you see, this is a powerful image of art. It does not necessarily need every sense to affect someone. In the same stanza, he also mentions lovers that cannot kiss. First, you think this is sad because they are frozen in time and they will never meet again. However, Keats interprets this from a different perspective. For him, not the action but the real feeling “love” is important and this feeling becomes immortal thanks to art because art extends something in space and in time

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