Ode on a Grecian Urn

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,…

Ode to a Grecian Urn by John Keats “Ode to a Grecian Urn” by John Keats is a poem written in the romantic period stating this from the imagery of the urn the life cycle of love. The influence of the romantic period is evident in the poem through the reference of love throughout the examination of the urn’s pictures. The reader is brought to understand that love is best frozen in time on the urn than allowed to expire through its natural course of action. Keats, simply uses imagery of the urn to…

In this passage from Lore Metzger’s essay, “‘Silence and Slow Time’: Pastoral Topoi in Keats’s Odes”, the author focuses on his Intertextual Theory that all literary works ultimately relate to each other in some form or another. Metzger, in this particular essay, commented specifically on Keats’ poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”. After careful evaluation, Metzger established that, “Keats insisted on his right to enlarge the neoclassic canon of ‘great masters,’ to test him. When he turned to…

Suppressing senses in John Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn Abstract: John Keats, as a pursuer of beauty, is well-known for his beautiful sensory language in his odes, but many of the odes intentionally limit the senses they inhabit. With particular references to Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn, this paper focuses on the reasons for suppressing senses and the methods of creating an abundance of believable sensation with limited senses. Key words: Ode to a…

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.” This line from his poem suggests the ability for art to a capture a moment. Keats also touches on the idea that a work of art can remain long after the artist, however, in order to have the work of art you must have the artist. Therefore, the question of the value between an artist and their artwork comes to be. Keats then begins to question the urn itself about the pictures on it which include; a guy and a girl under a tree about to…

Twisted Seduction After reading John Keats “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (782), the one theme that kept coming back to me was that the poem was being sensual. The narrator used words such as “ravished, wild ecstasy and sensual ear.” Imagine walking in on a man who is intimately examining a car and just by watching him it makes you uncomfortable. The poem reminded me of the show “My Strange Addiction” on TLC, particularly an episode in which a man gets sexually aroused by his car. On the first stanza,…

In Keats’ world, a Grecian urn sets the boundaries, and he conveys that by emulating the word choices of the Greeks in their plays, such as “Prometheus Bound’, a play by Aeschylus written around 430 B.C.E. This is important because of the speech commonalities between the two like “ye” and “twain” (Keats). Invoking these specific words creates a sense of legitimacy. Faulkner uses similar strategies to establish his setting, likening his character’s style of speaking to citizens of the Old South.…

A native of London, England, John Keats was born on October 31, 1795 and devoted his life to poetry marked by his bright use of imagery, sensuous appeal and philosophical ideas. Although his life and writing career of less than six years was very short-lived, his poetic achievements are extraordinary. Keats believed that reality is determined by knowledge. Therefore, most of his poems stem from internal conflicts. Several of his great works including “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode on a Grecian…

such as evil and beauty, and love and pain, are not so much balanced as they are interwoven (PoetryFoundation). John Keats wrote Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn in May of 1819. In Ode to a Nightingale describes different kinds of escapes from reality- opiates, drinking, and prose. “The voice I hear this passing night was heard/ In ancient days by emperor and clown” (DiYanni, Nightingale, p. 1146). The ‘voice’ was heard from the beginning of time, anyone can hear it. Death has…

poets and “starving artists” that by large made up the population. What’s more, the Romantics were writing at a time of capital vs. labour and rich vs. poor, just as Milton wrote against the backdrop of civil war and Arnold and Browning wrote in accordance with Victorian revolt concerning the matters of industrialisation as well as the elite theory of cultural distinction between poverty and prosperity. Essentially, there will always be political, social and economic change. The intricacy of…