ipl-logo

Ode On A Grecian Urn Analysis

800 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Keats ode to a nightingale text

In both poems Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale, Romantic poet John Keats narrates a state of envious longing for the immortal nature of his subjects, visualizing the idyllic, beautiful world that each encapsulates, thus offering him a form of escapism. This fancying forms a connection that immortality is beautiful compared to human mortality, with both poems realizing that this ideal world is unrealistic to be apart of. But, these poems differ in how the narrator views this immortal world. In Grecian Urn, the narrator admires the lively drawings on the urn, but is able to come back to reality experiencing that there is happiness, or truth, in the beautiful art that was witnessed. Nightingale shows more of a desperation to join …show more content…

Nightingale’s second stanza focuses heavily on imagery regarding the wine the narrator drinks. Keats characterizes the wine using images of nature, with the wine tasting “Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene”. The Hippocrene was a sacred site of Muses in greek mythology, alluding to its beauty and therefore the wine that the narrator drinks as tasting “beautiful”. He also describes the Nightingale’s immortal world as being “Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,”. Keats uses the imagery of nature in the wine to parallel the beautiful nature of where he’s so desperate to go to, the Nightingale’s forest, hoping to “fade away into the forest dim.” But, in Ode on a Grecian Urn, Keats uses imagery to describes the beauty of human actions whilst in nature. He makes sure to emphasize that the scenery will always be frozen, with every scene being stuck and never changing. This is not negative though, as the lovers will never fall out of love, the musician will never stop their sweet melodies, and son on. The use of imagery on the urn will always show a happy moment at each scene, forever encapsulating the eternal beauty of human happiness for anyone to admire as the urn is immortal against time, and it is in this beauty that the narrator sees the

Show More
Related
1375 Words | 6 Pages

This quote was mentioned before but is a great example to show the imagery he used. “It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex followed by three, four, six

Read More
362 Words | 2 Pages

" This opening sets the tone for the rest of the poem, conveying a sense of melancholy and nostalgia. The poet observes the tree as a symbol of natural beauty and simplicity in contrast

Read More
904 Words | 4 Pages

This is an example of astonishing imagery where the detail overflows the imagination. You feel immersed as you read the poem. The imagery portrayed in this poem adds a depth that you wouldn't be able to feel if you didn't get the provided

Read More
602 Words | 3 Pages

Imagery and tone plays a huge role for the author in this poem. It’s in every stanza and line in this poem. The tone is very passionate, joyful and tranquil.

Read More
920 Words | 4 Pages

Through the words reflecting melancholy and sorrow, we can sense the narrator's self destruction due to the death of the woman he loved. As one examines the figurative language of the poem, one finds that its form and

Read More
1965 Words | 8 Pages

To begin with, imagery illustrates a story in the reader’s mind. Amy is a very vivid writer, and throughout the novel, she has her own supporting story which correlates to the events happening to her in real life. In her story, the main character, Fiona, is about to escape her captivity from a prince in his tallest tower. Amy sits on her bed and writes the following, “Fiona forced herself to wait twenty slow breaths before pulling the stone away and taking out the hair rope… She took a deep breath for bravery.

Read More
532 Words | 3 Pages

Ted Hughes’s “To Paint a Water Lily” tells about an artist painting a scene of nature, and his choice to focus on a water lily. The poem also shows how the artist has two ways of thinking about nature. One way the artist thinks about nature is as a violent and scary thing. The artist also thinks of nature as a thing of beauty and grandeur. Though the artist acknowledges both of his views towards nature, he chooses to focus on the beauty.

Read More
996 Words | 4 Pages

An air of gloom, anguish and despair, with a hint of melancholy and a feathery apparition haunting the mind of a young scholar who is burdened by bereaved love and has secluded himself behind his chamber door, in a room full of bittersweet memories. Such is the work of Edgar Allan Poe, specifically, that of The Raven. Published on the 29th of January 1845, The Raven instantly became a hit and Poe’s most famous work. Oftentimes when discussing the gothic genre, many may immediately think of Poe, but in which sense is his work truly gothic? In the Raven, Poe conforms to a plurality of conventions characterised as typically gothic in order to effectively illustrate what effect the loss of a loved one can have on the mind.

Read More
551 Words | 3 Pages

Starting at line 5 and going to line 8, Keats imagines love as something written on the night sky. He starts by personifying the sky, in line 5 he says “..the night’s starred face,” which allows him to connect the sky to a person or in this case a human emotion. He brings the emotion of love and the concept of romance into his poem in line 6, “..symbols of high romance,” and in the following two lines he shows how unreachable love is if death is to come to him sooner rather than later. By placing the love he, and everybody else, longs for in the night sky, and vast and mysterious place, he makes the journey to finding love a long hard one. A journey that could never be fully accomplished if death was to come too

Read More
553 Words | 3 Pages

The tone of the poem is slightly sad, but reassuring. The first stanza is somber because the woman is old and seemingly alone. But, when the second stanza is read, readers are reassured and are able to see the love the speaker has for the woman. "But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, / And loved the sorrows of your changing face. "(7-8).

Read More
1317 Words | 6 Pages

The poem consists of a person talking to a Greek pot known as an “urn” which is made of marble. Majority of the poem centers on the story told in the images carved on the urn. Ode on a Grecian Urn is written encompassing both life and art, Keats uses Ode on a Grecian urn as a symbol of life. Critics and readers esteem the imagery of Ode on a Grecian Urn, which focuses on the symbolism and identification of the urn itself, and represents illustrated

Read More
986 Words | 4 Pages

Although Coleridge reflects on nature as being that “one Life within us and abroad “in most of his other poem, but coming In “Dejection: An Ode” we see more of the dialects between the imagination’s role in creating perception and nature guiding the soul. In the opening stanzas of “Dejection” the flipside to the romantic celebration of nature –the romantic emphasize on subjective experience, individual consciousness, and imagination. If our experience derives from ourselves, then nature can do nothing on its own. Beginning with the fifth stanza, Coleridge suggests that there is a power –personified joy that allows us to reconnect with nature and for it to renew us and that comes both from within and from without: “the spirit and the power, / Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower / A new Earth and new Heaven” (67–69).

Read More
1251 Words | 6 Pages

There are several interpretations of John Keats’ poem, Ode to a Nightingale. Keats begins his poem with talking about a bird that seems real, but as the poem progresses the bird turns into a symbol. Keats was envisioning how life could be much simpler and he was thinking about the different ways life is troublesome. His reality was taken over by his dream of having a life like the nightingale- worryless and free. He wishes that he could join the bird because if he could escape to the nightingale’s world, he could escape from reality and live a much more uncomplicated and worry free life.

Read More
1323 Words | 6 Pages

It adds to the imagery by adding the wind and personification also takes place in this stanza which is defined as giving a non – human thing, human life like qualities and abilities. In the following stanza, “Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.” The speaker introduces the first detail of their relationship and points to a possible reason for its demise when he admits “sometimes she loved me too.”

Read More
1932 Words | 8 Pages

The Romantic period believed that emotion was a form of intelligence, and art was a path to transcendence. As a result of the change in beliefs, Romantic poetry is often characterized by nature, imagination, memory, and wisdom. Imagination acts as a source of creativity, and allows us to see what is not immediately apparent. The Romantics believed that we could discover the imagination in nature, which often resulted in a harmony of the two. However, there are times when nature and imagination are in conflict with each other; for example, when imagination acts as an illusion, and distracts us from confronting the issue.

Read More

More about Ode On A Grecian Urn Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document