The poem titled ode on a Grecian urn was written by a twenty year old, John Keats during a very chaotic time of his life. During that time his brother Tom had died and he had met and tragically had fallen in love with Franny Brawne, his next door neighbor whom he was unable to marry due to his illness. Keats attempts to put his concerns and feelings about living, love, art, religion, death and eternity upon a Grecian urn. Ode on a Grecian urn represents a historical object of a Greek civilization, an urn painted with the scenes from Greek life. At the beginning of the ode, the poet is standing before an urn, and speaks to it as if it were alive. He treats the urn not as a subject but like it is human. He talks about the figures on the side of the urn, and asks what legend they portray, and where they are from. Keats uses a word unravished bride, meaning a virgin bride, a bride who has not been taken though she is married. The poet is turning the vase and sees the picture on the urn that shows musicians and lovers in a setting of country beauty. The author tries to identify with the characters because to him they represent the timeless perfection that only art can capture. Unlike the reality of living, the urns characters are frozen in time. The lovers will always love, though they will never consummate their desire. The musicians will always play under the trees that will never lose their leaves, and he is happy for the trees. Nevertheless while the urn is beautiful and everlasting, it is not real or alive. The lovers, while forever young and happy will never really touch or become close, but because the times never change on the urn, they wont see time go by, and they will be young forever.
The ode on a Grecian urn portrays what Keats sees on the urn himself, only his view of what is going on. The urn, passed down through many centuries portrays the image that everything that is going on, on the urn is frozen.
In the first stanza, the speaker, standing before an ancient Grecian urn uses apostrophe when he speaks to the urn. He speaks to the urn and not about the urn. He also describes the urn as a historian, which can tell a story.
In the second stanza, the speaker looks at another picture on the urn, this time of a young man playing a pipe, lying with his love beneath a tree. The speaker says that the pipers unheard melodies are sweeter than to a mortals ear or melody, because they are unaffected by time. Though he can never kiss his lover because he is frozen in time, he should not grieve because her beauty will never fade.
Such an argument may raise a number of provocative and uncomfortable questions. The readers may ask, what is the reason for living then? Why continue to pursue and attempt to create and define beauty? One may even ask, why go on living? Beauty is so central to humans most cherished beliefs and pursuits, which Keatss forceful lines seem to challenge important aspects of our very selves. Once the reader moves beyond this reaction, though, it becomes possible to see that Keats truth is liberating. If humans no longer need to strive to create the perfect beautiful form in whatever medium, then it frees them to be imperfect. Imperfections, in turn, liberates humans to make and remake art, and to recognize that one form dies with each individual death, and is born again with each new birth- a common theme in poetry from the romantic period. Bloom and Thrilling refer to this realization as Keatss Gift of tragic acceptance (Bloom), which the poet hands to the reader and urges him or her to accept and then contemplate.
In the third stanza, he looks at the trees surrounding the lovers and feels happy that they will never shed their leaves; he is happy for the piper because his songs will be forever new, and happy that the love of the boy and girl will last a lifetime, unlike mortal love which slowly turns into inhuman passion, eventually vanishing, leaving behind only a burning forehead and parching tongue.
In the fourth stanza, the speaker examines another picture on the urn, this one of a group of villagers leading someone to be sacrificed. Keats uses symbolism in ode on a Grecian urn to illustrate his love for ancient Greece. The two strongest concepts of the poem are desire and satisfaction. The feeling of satisfaction with no possible end is what Keats wants the readers to notice. Keats creates an aura of emptiness and unfulfilled desire by examining the consequences of nothing ever changing.
The poem by John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn is one of the most memorable and enduring of all the poems to come from the romantic period. Ode on a Grecian Urn is notable for its profound meditation and persuasive conclusions about the nature of beauty, particularly as beauty is portrayed in artistic media. The meaning of the poem Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats conveys, perhaps paradoxically, the speechlessness of the true language art (Klaus 251).
Ode on a Grecian Urn is a journey into the interior of Keatss mind and soul, as well as a disclosure of his most closely held beliefs. The poet uses an external object, a Grecian Urn, to provoke the reader to contemplate the same conflict which has preoccupied him and his fellow romantic poets so deeply. This particular ode, among all of his writings, shows Keats in a particular contemplative state. His observations of the urn have provoked considerations about the nature of truth, beauty, and the function of art, all of which were the primary concerns of the romantic poets. While the urn keeps the reader grounded in the realities of the outside world, the reader is a companion to the poet, who manipulates extreme emotions and ultimately concludes that life can only be captured by living it experientially, not trying to replicate it in art forms. The ultimate irony, of course is that Keats uses one art form, the poem, and specifically, the ode, to achieve the transmission of this artistic philosophy.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold, and Lionel Trilling. Romantic Poetry and Prose. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Hofman, Klaus. Keatss Ode on a Grecian Urn. Studies in Romanticism 45. (2006): 251.
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