To Autumn

To Autumn 

The shades and leaves of time that fall on me bereft 

shall be the Phoenix Lotus Flower of rebirth

Vibrating cornucopia of leaves; 

a bridge; a god disguised; the cosmic glee! 

sky-fringed yet the burdened passions hang on

take them in but slow; soon they'll BE -gone.

There are some similarities between my short poetry and To Autumn. 

I can connect:

'Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-'  

With the last couplet i wrote. This is because the theme is basically the same one: the passing of time and the preoccupation of this. In Keats, the narrator alludes to Spring but later insists that we should not think of it, but of the song of Autumn instead. In my poem the narrator also suggests that we should appreciate Autumn for what it is as it is bound to leave.

Part Two

1) How does To Autumn differ from the other poems you have studied?

This poem, although it is an ode, does not share the imaginative quality of the ones we have studied. 'To Autumn' is a descriptive piece, more like Keats describing what he saw rather than creating on a higher plane of artistry. Instead of pondering over the engravings on an urn, or on the nature of an abstract feeling, Keats paints with words the landscape of reality. It differs also in that Keats does not conclude on any abstract, transcendental question: he merely chronicles the process of nature and suggests we should take it in, one season at a time.  

2) I mentioned in a letter to my old pal Reynolds that the stubble fields in Autumn looked "warm" to me. How do I communicate a sense of warmth in my poem?

In the first part, this is communicated effectively throughout the stanza through the use of parallelism. 

The stanza begins by stating that Autumn is 'close bosom-friend of the maturing sun'. This association already links Autumn to the sun, the source of warmth and heat of the earth. Yet the use of the adjective 'maturing' implies that the sun is not unbearably intense like in summer; it is dim, powerful but enjoyable, maturing. Furthermore, the third line: 'conspiring with him how to...' begins a parallelistic structure that will extend until the end of the stanza, marked by the use of the word 'to'. This parallelism links all of the blossoming and the natural occurrences to the sun, with whom Autumn 'conspires to' to things like 'load and bless with fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run' and 'to set budding more, and still more, later flowers for the bees, until they think warm days...' Also, the line 'until they think warm days will never cease' is crucial as it shows that warmth is abundant, so much so that the flowers think it will never dissipate. 

Nevertheless, i cannot fathom the use of the word 'conspiring'. If the sun and Autumn are conspiring something, it means that this has not happened yet: is Keats describing something he wishes to see? Is any of this real? 

3) How do I use language to reflect the passage of time and a sense of an ever-changing world in this poem?

In the beginning, Keats is describes the allegiance between the Sun and Autumn: Keats uses the sentence 'conspiring with him [the sun] how to...' to enumerate a series of events through parallelism and hence paint a landscape of ripened nature ready for harvest. We know that the memory of summer is still fresh, as Keats closes the stanza by saying 'until they think warm days will never cease, for summer has over-brimmed their clammy cells.'

The next stanza shows the passing of time: the nuts and fruits are already on the floor of the granaries, the harvest is 'half-reaped' and Autumn watches the 'last oozings' of a cyder-press.  Words like 'sitting carelessly', 'sound asleep', 'drows'd' and 'with patient look' describe the personification of Autumn, the Reaper, as a sleepy subject to nature's drowsiness. Once again, the interconnectedness of nature and man is evident: the personification of Autumn and his succumbing to nature is a powerful image that cannot go unnoticed. 

The final stanza shows the coming of winter again through the use of imagery to convey the passing of time. 'Barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day' is a clue of the short days and cold clouds that characterize winter; also the fact that the formerly sumptuous landscapes turned into 'stubble plains' shows that time indeed has passed.  

Ode on Melancholy (Part Deux)

Ode on Melancholy (Part Deux)

NO, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries, 5
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. 10

Ideas

• Wolf's-bane, nightshade, yew-berries: death is associated with nature and the romantic notion of cosmic oneness; the returning as dead to nature.
• The tone of the narrator is concerned; yet at the end of the stanza he offers and explanation for his pleads. Here he claims that if more shade is added to 'shade', then the 'wakeful anguish of the soul' will be drowned, terminated. Keats points out that there is no point in furthering one's melancholy (in adding shade to shade), for it inevitably will lead to death, and in death there is no soul to soothe, no 'wakeful anguish'... Nothing. 
•  Overall message: The first stanza is Keats' plea against self-destruction. His romantic concept of the interconnectivity between man and nature is present in his association of death with nature as an inevitable cycle. Keats' message is optimistic and original: anguish may be in your soul, but it is better to be passionately suffering than to be put out of it forever.  

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, 15
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globèd peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. 20

Ideas

• The second stanza puts forward an interesting idea that melancholy is not a thing inherent of men, but rather that falls 'sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud' and covers mountains and takes over the flowers too. This is the clearest example of the aforementioned abstraction of cosmic oneness, as melancholy affects not only men but the environment surrounding it as well. 
• The tone of the narrator is optimistic and quixotical: he provides solutions to the melancholy fits by insisting that the interaction between man and nature will heal him and release him from his burdens. The beauty of nature in its one second of fleeting perfection is enough to make him happy again. 
• Overall message: this stanza also has a powerful conclusion. Keats claims that even when 'thy mistress' is angry and beside herself, 'he' (whoever Keats is talking to-maybe someone in particular, maybe his readers) should look right into her eyes and feed on them and their passion. It seems that Keats does not mind whether passion is negative or positive, as long as it is a burning sensation that transmits emotion. I love this. 

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight 25
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung. 30

Ideas

• This last stanza is a complex conclusion to the previous stanzas. There is a Taoist concept behind it: there is no good without evil, and Melancholy itself is the prize at the end of the poem. Before this, we know what we should not do (Stanza One), and how to deal with it (Stanza Two), but it is the third one that leaves us alone in the void of melancholic abysm. Lines such as 'Beauty that must die' or 'joy, whose hand is ever at his lips bidding adieu' juxtapose the cheerful cycle of life and death in nature of stanza two as a remedy for melancholy, and the abstract feelings of life, which behave in the same way but somehow make us more melancholic as we don't want them to burn out. 
• This last stanza depresses me, yet I find it so beautifully written and so true that I cannot neglect it. It is a universal conclusion, timeless and aesthetically flawless. The images evoked in the line 'though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine' are subtle and deep and my favorite. 

Conclusion 

The poem is rich in imagery, and it's message is so beautiful (and distressing) that it is my favorite poem; I cannot avoid perceiving the last stanza as apocalyptic- the whole of it reminds me of the phrase 'Time destroys everything' and this only generates angst and melancholy.

Imagery in Ode on Melancholy

Imagery in Ode on Melancholy

Lyrical Poetry

Lyrical poetry:

• A form of poetry which does not involve characters or a plot, but usually deals with feelings and their complex evolution 
• now commonly associated with the lyrics to a song
• were written to be accompanied by the lyre
• expresses subjective, personal point of view
• usually in the form of ode or sonnet; a short poem 

On the word 'melancholy'

The word 'melancholy' comes from medieval times when people's moods were thought to come from 'humors', which deteremined a person's behavior. A depressed person was thought to have too much 'melancholy', which was literally black bile secreted by the spleen. 

Therefore we can deduce that melancholy is the highest state of depression, the harshest feeling of loneliness and negligence. 

Interesting passages 

'pale forehead': after reading 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci', the word 'pale' has acquired a new connotation, associated with death.

On the other hand, i find interesting the first line:
'NO, no, go not to Lethe': Lethe is the River of Forgetfulness in the Underworld, and the line sounds like a plea from the narrator asking somebody not to indulge in the nihilistic process of self-destruction that often comes hand in hand with forgetfulness... Alcohol?

Stanza imagery 

Stanza One

This image represents in my mind the feeling of melancholy expressed in the first stanza: the contemplation of the unknown, the sorrow, the romantic loneliness and the sadness of it all. 

'No, no, go no to Lethe'

The line refers to the fact that forgetfulness should not be an option, but its association with alcohol surges from the fact that it is a timeless recipe for melancholy.

'For shade to shade will come too drowsily, And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.'

 I chose this image because it conveys the message of the line: even if anguish is what is in your soul, it is better to have one and experience and live the pain; it shows that agony and distress are not the source of calamity, but an instance of life. An optimistic line.

Stanza 2

This image rounds up the whole concept of the stanza: the romantic narrator's suggestion of taking in nature even 'when the melancholy fit shall fall sudden from haven like a weeping cloud', and healing melancholy with Mother Nature. 

'Or on the rainbow of the salt sandwave'

This image represents Keats' concept of transience: beauty is not everlasting, nothing lasts forever; life is too short to let melancholy ruin the moment. 

What also caught my attention is that Keats puts forward as a solution to the 'melancholy fit' immediate, transient things in nature: 'a morning rose', 'the rainbow of the salt sand-wave', 'the wealth of the globed peonies'. Keats satiates or rather gets rid of the melancholy through the appreciation of temporary elements of nature. However, this beauty is not unique: Keats knows that these ephemeral miracles of nature happen constantly, so personally here I get confused... Keats is concerned with the volatility of things and their briefness, yet nature's cycle spins, so that after death comes rebirth, and so on... Beauty in nature is eternally dying and resurrecting- We should seek consolation in Nature, not in flesh and transient things. 

This is reinforced in the last line 'feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes': Keats suggests that we should  'feed' upon the eyes. The eyes are a mirror  of the soul, they reflect passions and emotions. Keats does not crave the earthly or the mundane, he seeks the transcendental, the eternal, the soul.

Stanza 3 

'And in the very Temple of Delight
 veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine'  
 

I chose this image to represent the idea behind these lines because it depicts the concept of eternal and inevitable toil. Even at the heart of what is purest lies sorrow and grief, and only he who can find whats really pure will find real grief... Ying Yang.

'And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips bidding adieu'

This painting by Edvard Munch reflects the sorrow of the line: Joy is momentary, brief, fleeting; the menace of goodbye is always present, as real as Joy.

Ode on a Grecian Urn - the pyramid

Ode on a Grecian Urn - the Pyramid

This activity gave me the possibility of summarizing and understanding what the essence of the poem is. 

Keats, through the careful study of the pictures on the urn, sees in the static frames a transcendental truth. I think this is brilliant: Keats' capacity to wrench life and complexity out from the superficiality and shallowness that the carvings on an urn can signify to most people.Keats' profound thinking and obvious higher level of understanding are exposed through his study of the grecian Urn. 

Keats sees the universal struggle for eternity and timeless in the Urn.

Keats envies the figures on the urn but at the same time questions their naure and somewhere in the way empathizes with them. He knows that their passions will never fade, yet he understands they will never consummate their love as long as they are stuck in the eternity of the urn. Their only purpose is to teach new generations when 'old age shall this generation waste'; their passions a study and reflection of human nature for humankind to reflect upon eternally through time. 

 

Synaesthesia in Ode on A Grecian Urn

Synaesthesia in Ode on A Grecian Urn

Ode on A Grecian Urn is full of synaesthetic images as Romanticism sought to interconnect all the aspects of nature and to interweave everything so as to create a complex fabric of Oneness. We see examples of synaesthesia throughout the poem: 

'heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter' 

here sensations overlap and the images appeal to different things: 'melodies' is a clear auditory image, while 'sweet' appeals to the gustatory sense. This connection seeks to validate the pleasantness in the ideal, as it suggests that 'unheard melodies are sweeter', provoking in the reader the sentiment that higher pleasure and enjoyment can be obtained if we indulge in the unreal.

'more happy love! more happy, happy love! 

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, 

for ever panting, and for ever young;' 

This use of synaesthesia is fascinating. The adjectives 'Warm', 'panting' and 'young' modify 'love', but herein lies the problem: what 'love' is Keats referring to? Carnal love-making or the abstract sensation of love? Regardless of his ambiguity, the adjectives used appeal to different senses, so even if we take both as correct interpretations, we can still unearth the use of synaesthetic imagery. Love, through all of its attributions, gains dimensions and complexity: Keats uses different instances of love and their sensations to summerize and create in the mind of the reader a flash of wholeness in the understanding of love. Keats talks about warmth in love: it is a clear thermal image, but we know he refers to the feeling of coziness and comfort that love catalyzes; he talks about 'panting' and there, although it is a visual image and a physical one, we understand the reference to the sexual face of love; in using 'young', the image is visual again, but the reader perceives the real intention behind the use of the word, to highlight the immortality that the Urn guarantees. All in all, the combination of these three adjectives provides unity and richness in depth to 'love'; Keats makes sure that the allusion to love is not only to one side of it, the sexual or the abstract, but to the whole concept of love, with all its implications. 

Understanding Grecian Urn

Understanding Ode on a Grecian Urn

Stanza One 

Why is the urn compared to a " still unravish'd bride"?
"still" has two meanings - "motionless" or "remaining in time". Time and motion are two concepts that the poem explores throughout.
"unravish'd" means unspoiled - a bride yet to lose her virginity; similarly, the urn and the scenes it represents are "unspoiled" by the passage of time.
Explain the term "sylvan historian"(l.3)
The urn is a "Sylvan historian" because it records scenes from a culture lived long ago (ancient greeks); and because it is bordered with leaves, as well as having scenes of the countryside within.
Is it paradoxical that the urn, a "bride of quietness", can tell its stories "more sweetly than our rhyme" (meaning the poem itself)?
The gentleness of the term "sylvan historian" and his "flowery tale" told "sweetly" do not prepare us for the wild sexuality of lines 8-10. (Another contrast!)
What change in viewpoint occurs in lines 8-10?

The short questions and frequent repetitions inject pace into the poem. Notice how the speaker moves from contemplative observer to emotionally-involved participant with these breathless questions. (We have another contrast - that of the participant vs the observer). You may want to think about how I develop this idea throughout, and what it might suggest about the audience's relationship with "Art" in general...

Stanza Two

This stanza develops the romantic notion of the ideal triumphing over the real. Keats believes in the beauty of the unreal, of the infinitely perfect, of the intangible aesthetic of the beauty that exists only on a mental plane that escapes the mundanity of physical existence.  Keats reaffirms the romantic belief that true beauty is not conceivable outside the boundaries of one's abstract conceptions. 

He reinforces this concept through the statement that introduces the second stanza: 

'heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter' 

Here we perceive the author's view on this question of the real versus the ideal.  Keats prefers the tune that is perfect in its immaculate 'in-conception', that is, he prefers the ideal over the physical interpretation of that abstract thought that originates (and should stay) in the mind. 

I personally adhere to this: call me a romantic, call me whatever you like... I believe that the pure essence of a thought, before having to subject it to judgements, choice of words, etc. in the mind is where it belongs if you want to keep it virginal and fresh. Furthermore, no song, like Keats says, sounds even close to what it sounds like after that 'flash of alchemy' (as Ginsberg would put it) in the mind when it is originally conceived. Thoughts and passions are felt, which is why when written down most of them lose their virginity to the roughness and insensibility of the world we live in. 

In terms of the 'unheard pipes', there is one line that calls my attention and makes me hesitant: 

'pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone' 

Here Keats alludes again to the power of the ideal, yet the 'spirit ditties of no tone' evokes such a strong image that it makes us wonder what Keats meant. How can a song have no tone? Is Keats being so romantic, so farfetched, so idealistic and abstract, that he seeks to hear the 'un-hearable'? A song with no tone is like a book with no words- is Keats condensing his aesthetic appraisal and focusing on the transcendental, non-concrete elements behind things? 

Making of the Grecian Urn

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Making the Urn