Ode to a Grecian Urn Essay -- John Keats Poems Poetry Vases Essays

Ode to a Grecian Urn In the early 19th century it was not unusual to make a work of art, painting or sculpture a subject of a poem. Taken literally, the poem 'Ode to a Grecian Urn' is a poem about a vase, but Keats has inverted the traditional understanding of physical, tangible objects and transformed them into metaphors for abstract concepts, such as truth and time. An urn is primarily used to preserve the ashes of the dead. The theme of the Ode, accordingly, has to do with the relationship between imagination and actuality, and the supremacy and immortality of a work of art if compared to our ordinary life. With the masterful use of the device of figurative language, Keats has created a melodic, beautifully flowing poem which well serves the purpose he gives it. Keats himself can be assumed to be the speaker, the overall setting is unknown. The tone of the poem reflects the fact that Keats seems truly awed and astonished by the urn he considers. The poem is written in ten-line iambic pentameter throughout, which creates a flowing rhythmic effect. The rhyme scheme is unusual, but Keats breaks the form with this five-part poem. The rhyme pattern is A - B - A - B - C - D - E - D - C - E. There is apattern of interwoven paradoxes which persist throughout the Ode, contributing to its unity of thought and the development of its main theme (that the Urn has managed to achieve immortality). The first stanza sets the pattern of paradoxes that runs throughout the poem. Firstly in its structure, it is split into two sections - the first four lines are a series of apostrophes, personifying the urn, and addressing it in its special association to silence and time, and the last six are a series of questions. .. ...self from the urn to consider its overall significance in relation to human life and passion. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" sums up the relationships described throughout the poem. In the poem "Ode On a Grecian Urn", the poet John Keats uses language and the object of his poem to link abstract actions and concepts to physical, real, concrete things, in many different ways. Using iambic pentameter, and a unique rhyme scheme, Keats' sets up a harmonious, delightfully fluid poem which well serves the purpose he gives it. The "Ode on a Grecian Urn" squarely confronts the truth that art is not "natural," like leaves on a tree, but artificial. Bibliography Romantic Writings: An Anthology (1998) Oxford University Press Abrahams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms (1998) Thomas Learning Stephen Bygrave (ed.), Romantic Writings (1996) Open University