To Autumn Notes

Literary Techniques
Personification, apostrophe, and imagery are the main techniques used to employ meaning
in "To Autumn." Namely, Keats uses personification in order to give Autumn human
qualities in almost every single image. The most famous one from the poem, of course, is in
calling Autumn the "close bosom-friend of the maturing sun." Autumn is also shown to be
"conspiring" with the sun in order to produce a fruitful harvest. Therefore, the sun is also
personified indirectly (in that it is a "friend" and a "conspirer" as well). Autumn is also
described as "sitting careless" and having "hair soft-lifted" in drowsing. Keats also uses
apostrophe in his poem to help employ meaning to the reader. Apostrophe is the device
used when a poet invokes something that is not human (an animal, an idea, even a dead
person) or someone who is not there with direct address.

MOOD
The prevailing mood of "To Autumn" is peace and contentment. I cannot read one of Keats's
poems without thinking about how short his life was and how his poetry reflects his
thoughts on life and death. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 26 in 1821. He wrote "To
Autumn" only two years earlier. In a sense, Keats was in the autumn of his own life. By
showing peace and contentment in the closing of the year, Keats was in essence saying that
he had come to terms and was at peace with the fact of his illness and imminent death.The
prevailing mood in 'To Autumn' is that of the union between joy and melancholy. In my
opinion, this poem outlines the theme that joy can only be appreciated in juxtaposition with
sadness. Life can only be lived to its fullest extent if death is present at its very conception.
The beauty and joy experienced in 'To Autumn' are heightened by the passage of time and
the coming. of winter. The beauty and joy of the dying day are reflected in and
complemented by images evoking sadness: the sun setting on the stubble fields and the wail
of the gnats. Contentment which directly evokes sadness and implies acceptance of the
process toward death beyond grief, is mirrored in Keats' poem.

IMAGERY
Of course, no one could talk about "To Autumn" without mentioning the rich imagery here!
All five senses are evoked! In regards to sound images (which are mostly represented in the
last stanza), we have the buzzing "bees" and the "winnowing wind" and the "music" of
Autumn as well as the "choirs of gnats," the "lambs loud bleat," the songs of "Hedge-
crickets," and the "red-breast whistles." There are plenty of touch images as well such as the
"mists," the "clammy cells" of the bees, Autumn's "soft-lifted" hair, and the "oozing" of the
ripe fruit. Touch, of course, can bleed into taste imagery as the "oozing" of ripe fruit also
appeals to taste as does the "fruit with ripeness to the core," the "sweet kernel," the "cider
press," and simply the plural noun "apples". In regards to smell (the least used method of
imagery here), Keats adds "later flowers for the bees" and "the fume of poppies." In regards
to sight images, most every noun can be one. Most of the examples above can also be sight
images. However here are two of my favourite collections from the poem: To Autumn” is
rich in imagery, evoking the perceptions of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Each
stanza highlights one of the senses. The first stanza especially evokes the senses of smell
and touch. The sharp smell of the early-morning mist, the mellowness of ripe apples, and
the sweet-smelling flowers attracting bees all work together to tempt the reader into
believing that summer will never end. Nothing appears static in this stanza; the fruit, the
nuts, and the honeycombs swell, bursting into ripeness, spilling out of their shells. Keats
emphasizes the sense of sight in the second stanza by inviting the reader to see autumn as
harvester, her hair “soft -lifted by the winnowing wind,” checking, cutting, and gleaning the
crops. The sights evoke a certain lassitude. Autumn moves slowly amid her stores; she
sleeps, “drows’d by the fume of poppies”; idly, she watches the “last oozing hours by
hours.” The frantic movements so prevalent in the first stanza are slowly replaced by stasis
in the second stanza until time seems no longer to move toward winter. Although visual
beauty is evoked by the sun going down on the “stubble - plains,” it is the sense of hearing
that sets the tone in the last stanza. The reader and autumn are reminded that the songs of
spring have been replaced by a different but no less beautiful music. One hears the
mourning sound of the gnats, the bleating of the full-grown lambs, the whistling song of the
red-breast, and the twittering of the swallows as they gather for their flight toward summer.
The sudden chorus of sounds breaks the heavy silence of the second stanza, where in the
midday heat of a fall day all sounds were hushed. The music brings autumn to a fitting close;
the cycle of nature has been completed, and winter has come with a natural sweetness as
the day dies softly to the mournful sound of the gnats.

LINK TO ROMANTICS
John Keats' "To Autumn" is an ode, which is a lyric poem that addresses and honours a
subject—in this case, nature. Romantics, as you know, esteem nature. The poem also uses
the metaphor of Autumn (or nature) as a goddess, so it is classical. Romantics believe in the
classical view of nature (think Garden of Eden here). According to this view, nature is a
paradise, the perfect harmony of man, the divine, and the organic. It is a Utopia, worthy of
an ode (poetry), corresponding Utopian language. The language of the ode is simple,
reflecting the natural language of man. The Romantics sought to wrest poetry from the
elitists and render in anew for the common man. The poem also inductively addresses the
theme of beauty in death. Autumn, as most would have it, is time when nature dies. But
Keats sees it as a time of unmatched beauty, even more than Spring. He accepts death as a
natural part of the life cycle. The poem is very meta. It deals with harvesting grain, which is
symbolic of knowledge. So, the act of writing about nature is an act of meta-cognition by the
speaker. He recognizes his own mental harvesting of the natural beauty and knowledge that
Autumn affords.

GREEK MYTH
Keats wrote the poem "To Autumn" late in his poetic career, and it has been referred to as
one of the most perfect poems in the English language. The poem consists of three stanzas.
The first stanza references the bounty of early autumn before the harvest, the second
personifies Autumn as a harvester, though one in stasis, and the third stanza describes the
chilly end of the season and the promise of winter, which is also the promise of death. The
personification of Autumn could be considered an allusion to the mythology of ancient
Greece. However, compared with his other odes, "Ode to a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to
Psyche, ” this poem does not include as many overt allusions to ancient Greece. Rather, the
poem subtly recalls the myth of Persephone, Demeter, and Hades. Keats's poem offers up
an acceptance of this cycle of life and death. In the final stanza, the speaker addresses a
personified Autumn by saying: Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think
not of them, thou hast thy music too By noting this, the speaker realizes that the approach
of death brought by Autumn can be just as beautiful as the promise of life found in the
Spring.