Keats

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Keats Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a
Grecian Urn

• Disher-Campbell

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Background

• Odes are lyrical, elegaic, complex, and grandiose
  in theme/language, serious in structure, and
  Romantic Meditative odes are usually developed by
  theme rather than through a formal structure (see
  handout for clarification)
• Twin odes on the themes of beauty and poetic
  inspiration (Ode to Psyche is also related to
  inspiration, but each ode approaches the subject
  differently)
• Nightingalespoken to a nightingale
• Grecian Urnreferring to an ancient Greek urn
  (remember his fascination with the classics?)

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Nightingale

• If youve read To Kill a Mockingbird, you know
  why its a sin to kill a mockingbirdthey do
  nothing but sing, so they do not harm humans in
  any way. They do not destroy property, they eat
  pesky insects, and their singing is beautiful.
• Commonly known for singing at night (when few
  other birds sing), but sings throughout the day.
• The birds Anglo-Saxon name, nihtingale, means
  night songstress.

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Keats little musea European Nightingale(click
to hear one of his day songs)
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Ode on a Grecian Urn

• Written in 1819 during his nine month intense
  creative flowering.
• The original manuscript of Ode on a Grecian Urn
  is lost. We have one in George Keats
  handwriting, but Johns is gone.
• Third of the five great odes.
• Discussion of beauty (permanence of art vs.
  fleeting beauty)

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Paradox and Meaning

• "Ode on a Grecian Ode" is based on a series of
  paradoxes and opposites
• the discrepancy between the urn with its frozen
  images and the dynamic life portrayed on the urn,
• the human and changeable versus the immortal and
  permanent,
• participation versus observation,
• life versus art.
• As in "Ode to a Nightingale," the poet wants to
  create a world of pure joy, but in this poem the
  idealized or fantasy world  is the life of the
  people on the urn. Keats sees them,
  simultaneously, as carved figures on the marble
  vase and live people in ancient Greece.
• Existing in a frozen or suspended time, they
  cannot move or change, nor can their feelings
  change, yet the unknown sculptor has succeeded in
  creating a sense of living passion and turbulent
  action. As in "Ode to a Nightingale," the real
  world of pain contrasts with the fantasy world of
  joy.

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• Grecian Urns did not have the connotation of
  death that we associate with them today.
• Used for carrying water/oil/wine, holding
  flowers, storytelling, decorative purposes
• Often depicted important events (weddings,
  victories) or stories about the gods

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An Urn drawn by Keats
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Beauty-Truth Couplet

• There are three different versions of the
  truth-beauty couplet at the end of the poem. No
  one knows which is the one intended by Keats (the
  published or noted copy of the poem), and each
  changes the meaning slightly.

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• Version 1
• This version is based on a comparison of the four
  transcripts by friends. They agree on the
  wording, but not on capitalization.
• Beauty is Truth,--Truth Beauty,--that is all   
    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know
• Version 2This version appeared in the Annals of
  the Fine Arts, for MDCCCXIX. It was probably
  published in January 1820.
• Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.--That is all     
  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
• Version 3This version appeared in the volume of
  poetry published in July 1820, during Keats's
  lifetime. It is not clear that he was well enough
  to correct typographical errors.
• "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"--that is all   
    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.