Autumn

 Can a person define life? Can life be defined at all? In his last rebellious
act against death, one author took on the challenge. John Keats’ poem “To
Autumn” is a beautiful masterpiece, which has withstood the test of time.
Keats’ theme in “To Autumn” portrays how life can be related to the slow
progression of the fall season. Keats shows this with his slowing rhythm
and use of syntax, the softening of his sounds and diction, and the detailed
imagery he manipulates throughout the poem. Keats uses these same
techniques in “The Eve of St. Agnes”. The portrayal of ardent young love
dealing with a hostile adult world and contrasted with aging and death has
an inherent appeal on the reader. A closer reading reveals more than just a
gorgeous surface; it reveals many of the same concerns about life that
Keats explores in his odes--imagination, dreaming and vision, and life as a
mixture of opposites
             In To Autumn, Keats cleverly introduces the theme through rhythm
and syntax alterations. It is written in iambic pentameter, allowing the first
stanza to move fluently without hesitation due to the consistence of the
meter. The second stanza brings about a slower pace, as the rhythm is
momentarily broken by a question asked by the author, “Who hath not seen
thee oft amid thy store?” Keats may have inserted this question to slow the
reader down. The question forces the reader to pause and think about the
answer. Afterward, the rhythm flows until the beginning of stanza three,
where two questions are asked, again slowing the reader down. These
momentary pauses relate to Keats’ theme. The first stanza pertains to early
autumn, “And still more, later flowers for the bees, until they think warm
days will never cease.” This can be compared to a young child radiating
with energy and full of the innocence of youth. Both early autumn and a
young child are full of life and are naïve to the cruelties yet to come. Then,
in the second stanza, a question is thrown in to slow down the reader, and
signal the change in season: mid-autumn. The harvest is in, and everything
seems to be more lethargic. Sentences like “Or on a half-reaped furrow