Ode On A Grecian Urn Essay

In Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and in Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” both authors create different perspectives of a singular object, a Grecian Urn and a Blackbird, as a focus to highlight their individual style and form while also articulating various meanings of that singular object. However, Keats uses these variations of the Grecian Urn to exemplify his romantic style by constructing longer stanzas that paint entire images and emphasize emotions generated from that image. On the other hand, Stevens’s modernist style focuses on the idea of capturing a realistic perspective. He establishes more, shorter stanzas in order to produce fragmentation of the Blackbird to reinforce his modernistic style. Although, as a whole, …show more content…
Keats employs this style in order to convey to his audience the various interpretations you can have on a single object. On the Grecian Urn, Keats depicts two different scenes; one of a couple in love under a grove of trees and one of a town whose townspeople are departing in celebration. These separate depictions painted on the Grecian Urn are described in long, fluid stanzas that seem to encompass the entire spectacle as it is happening. These ten line, iambic pentameter stanzas highlight Keats’s romanticist style, forcing him to focus his poem on the feelings within his characters and the emotions being transmitted from one individual. In emphasizing the sublime emotions the two lovers express to each other, Keats turns from capturing the outside world to illuminating the world of passion within the individuals. At the same time, painted on the other side of the Grecian Urn, happiness is depicted as a grand celebration rather than sublime love. The townspeople sacrifice a “heifer” as a celebratory offering to the Gods in return for their jovial mood. The different interpretations of happiness reinforce Keats use of multiple stanzas in order to establish the sense of