Ode on a Grecian Urn

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Ode on a Grecian Urn

• The author of this poem is John Keats

keats, john. "ode on a grecian urn."
http//englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/odeonagreci
anurn.html. Philological Quarterly, 1977. Web. 7
Feb 2011. lthttp//englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/
odeonagrecianurn.htmlgt.
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Poem

• Thou still unravished bride of quietness,      
  Thou foster child of silence and slow time,
  Sylvan historian, who canst thus express      
  A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme What
  leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape      
  Of deities or mortals, or of both,            
  In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or
  gods are these? What maidens loath?       What
  mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?          
    What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
• Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard    
    Are sweeter therefore, ye soft pipes, play on
  Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,    
    Pipe to the spirit dities of no tone. Fair
  youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave  
      Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare
              Bold Lover, never, never canst thou
  kiss, Though winning near the goal---yet, do not
  grieve       She cannot fade, though thou hast
  not thy bliss             Forever wilt thou
  love, and she be fair!

3

• Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed      
  Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu And,
  happy melodist, unweari-ed,       Forever piping
  songs forever new More happy love! more happy,
  happy love!       Forever warm and still to be
  enjoyed,             Forever panting, and
  forever young All breathing human passion far
  above,       That leaves a heart high-sorrowful
  and cloyed,             A burning forehead, and
  a parching tongue.
• Who are these coming to the sacrifice?       To
  what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st
  thou that heifer lowing at the skies,       And
  all her silken flanks with garlands dressed?
  What little town by river or sea shore,      
  Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,        
      Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
  And, little town, thy streets for evermore    
    Will silent be and not a soul to tell        
      Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

4

• Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed      
  Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu And,
  happy melodist, unweari-ed,       Forever piping
  songs forever new More happy love! more happy,
  happy love!       Forever warm and still to be
  enjoyed,             Forever panting, and
  forever young All breathing human passion far
  above,       That leaves a heart high-sorrowful
  and cloyed,             A burning forehead, and
  a parching tongue.
• Who are these coming to the sacrifice?       To
  what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st
  thou that heifer lowing at the skies,       And
  all her silken flanks with garlands dressed?
  What little town by river or sea shore,      
  Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,        
      Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
  And, little town, thy streets for evermore    
    Will silent be and not a soul to tell        
      Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

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Paraphrase

• The Ode is a form of Lyric poem. Ode on a Grecian
  Urn is one of the most popular poems of Romantic
  poet, John Keats. It is one of the most widely
  read poems amongst Literature students.The poem
  focuses on the nature of beauty. Urns of this era
  are characterized by scenes from religious and
  musical ceremonies similar to the ones described
  throughout the poem. The Ode on a Grecian Urn
  portrays his attempt to engage with the static
  immobility of sculpture. The Grecian urn, passed
  down through countless centuries to the time of
  the speakers viewing, exists outside of time in
  the human sense.

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Diction

• Keats has a unique way of using his words in his
  poem. In the first stanza, the speaker stands
  before an ancient Grecian urn and addresses it.
• 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 lover beneath
  a glade of trees. In the fourth stanza, the
  speaker examines another picture on the urn, this
  one of a group of villagers leading a heifer to
  be sacrificed. It is true that the speaker shows
  a certain kind of progress in his successive
  attempts to engage with the urn. In the final
  stanza, the speaker presents the conclusions
  drawn from his three attempts to engage with the
  urn. He is overwhelmed by its existence outside
  of temporal change, with its ability to tease
  him out of thought / As doth eternity.

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Tone and Mood

• The prevailing mood is one of unperturbed
  reflection, as evinced in the opening lines' use
  of the words 'quietness' and 'silence'. The
  iambic rhythm is apparent in the first line,
  where the stress is on the words 'still', the
  syllable 'rav' in 'unravish'd', 'bride', and the
  syllables 'qui' and 'ness' in 'quietness',
  creating the impression of a heartbeat. It also
  becomes clear that there is a coexistence of
  concepts embodied in the word 'still', which
  carries two meanings, representing both time and
  motion, thus creating the impression of a frozen
  moment - an image which recurs throughout. The
  repetitious use of questions also adds suspense,
  the reader wishing to progress further to see if
  they are answered. As well as single words - the
  repetition of 'What' in lines 5,8,9 and 10 -
  whole sentence structures are also repeated in
  the last 3 lines, which all employ caesura
  (represented with a question mark), indicating
  that the reader should pause for effect. Suspense
  is also provided through the impression of
  escalating volume. The stanza began with a mood
  of meditative stillness yet finishes with the
  sounds of 'pipes and timbrels'

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Rhetorical Situation

• Who is the speaker in the poem Our speaker is
  insecure. He keeps comparing his own verses to
  the urn, and he decides that theyre nowhere near
  as good.
• To whom is it addressed to Directly to the
  reader.
• What is the author intending to communicate to
  the reader The Grecian Urn depicts a world of
  beauty and human passions that are set in art.
  The Lover on the urn pictures something that
  cannot fade. In the poem there is a development
  of the idea of the supremacy of ideal art over
  nature since it is captured for all time on the
  urn it is an unchanging expression of perfection.

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Figurative Language

• All the scenes depict some form of human emotion,
  particularly love and desire. However, the
  overall theme of the poem is about the important
  of beauty. The figurative language in the poem
  illustrates Keats view the importance of beauty.
  Keats uses a lot of imagery from Greek culture to
  illustrate the importance of beauty. In the first
  stanza, he speaks of the places in Greece known
  for their beauty and serenity. He speaks of the
  "leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape of
  deities or mortals, or of both, in Tempe or the
  dales of Arcady" (lines 5-7). According to
  legend, Tempe and Arcady are places where both
  humans and gods had the opportunity to experience
  the beauty of these places. Thus, Keats is
  showing readers that enjoying the beauty that
  surrounds us in not a divine privilege.

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Imagery

• Lines 1-2 The poem opens with an apostrophe, by
  addressing something that cannot respond. Also,
  the speaker uses a metaphor to compare the urn to
  an "unravishd" bride and "foster-child." The urn
  is being personified, or treated as if it were a
  person who could actually get married.
• Line 3 Through metaphor, the urn is compared to
  a "sylvan historian," or someone who tells
  stories about forest life.
• Lines 41-42 The speaker praises the urns shape
  and posture and provides the image of "marble men
  and maidens" that form a kind of "braid."
• Line 44 The apostrophe and personification
  continues ("Thou silent form").
• Lines 48-50 The urn is personified as speaking
  to the humans. The urn uses a simple chiasmus in
  the expression "Beauty is truth, truth beauty."

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Sound

• The sound of the poem is very easy and sweet.
  Its a love poem which is very romantic its very
  detailed and he speaks with passion
• Perpetuation and immortality are the main themes
  in Ode to a Grecian Urn. The theme of
  perpetuation is brought up by the images where
  the piper got to play his song forever, the guy
  who could never kiss the girl under a tree yet
  the beauty stayed with the girl forever, the tree
  that would never shed its leaves etc. These all
  happen because all the things carved on the urn
  are unmoving.

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Structure

• "Ode on a Grecian Urn" consists of five stanzas
  that present a scene, describe and comment on
  what it shows, and offer a general truth that the
  scene teaches a person analyzing the scene. Each
  stanza has ten lines written in iambic
  pentameter, a pattern of rhythm (meter) that
  assigns ten syllables to each line. The first
  syllable is unaccented, the second accented, the
  third unaccented, the fourth accented, and so on.
  
• Romanticism
• Rhyme Scheme
• First Stanza ababcdecde
• Second Stanza ababcdeced
• Third Stanza ababcdecde
• Fourth stanza ababcdecde
• iambic pentameter, where each line has ten
  syllables
• In line 13, for example, he begins with a
  stressed syllable for dramatic effect
• Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared

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Conclusion

• The conclusion is its a love poem that has lots
  of feelings and descriptions in it. Since it was
  written during the romantic period it explains
  the writing during this time period.
• The urn is the star of the show, and it is
  described in several different ways. In the
  beginning of the poem, its a married bride
• uses a metaphor to compare the urn to an
  "unravishd" bride and "foster-child."

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Reaction

• My reaction to this poem was it was very sweet
  after I understood it. Very detailed and it had
  lots of imagery in the poem. I had to read it
  more then once because it was so long. After a
  couple times I understood with the help of
  Google.