Professional Documents
Culture Documents
WORKS
2
Keats's life was really troubled and this influenced him and his poems
·Imagination: recognises Beauty in existing things,but can also create it ; it's creative
force and is more powerful than speculative reasoning
·Negative capability: is one of Keats's theories, about the ability to experience
uncertainties and doubts without reaching after fact or reason (the poet as such has no
identity)
·Ancient Greece: together with poetry meant to him only beauty ; it was Keats's
inspiration, that he then reinterpreted trough the eyes of a romantic, like in his "Ode on a
Grecian Urn"
·Middle Age: was the third great source of Keats's poetry (for legend, magic and
supernatural) reinterpreted trough the eyes of Romantic, like in his "La belle dame sans
merci"
The themes are : beauty, art and life, imagination and reality. It is centred on the relation
between art,death and life. The figures on the Greek urn are eternal. Human activity has
been frozen capturing moments of happiness but at a price: the young men will never
kiss the girl and the crowd will never return to the little town. They are escaped into the
world of unchanging art. The urn watches the course of human events, generation after
generation, and gives a message: beauty is eternal, truth is eternal, so beauty is truth
and truth is beauty. The main theme of this poem is the difference between the eternal
perfection of art and the mutability and suffering of human existence.
3
This poem is an irregular Pindaric Ode. It consists of 5 stanzas made up of 10 lines. The
rytme scheme is ABAB CDE DCE. So, each stanza, is made up of two parts: a quatrain
and a sestet.
STANZA I: Here we can see the invocation, typical element of an ode. At the beginning
the poet speaks to the urn like a living creature (personification) giving her three
metaphors, then he asks himself about the figures represented on the urn. In this series
of questions we can note the negative capability, stylistic feature of Keats.
STANZA II: In the first two lines the poet asserts the superiority of imagination on the
feeling. Then the poet speaks with a musician imprinted on the urn, a Bold Lover who
can't kiss the girl near him. With this scene the poet introduces the theme of this ode:
the immortality of art.
STANZA III: At the beginning the poet speaks to the nature, then he compares the love
of the characters on the urn and the human love and in this way Keats introduces an
other theme of this ode and in general of the his poetry: the love represented by the art
is better than the sensual love.
STANZA V: This stanza is full of metaphors to the urn and also here we can see a
reference to the negative capability. The speaker addresses the urn saying that the urn
will remain forever. " Beauty is truth, truth beauty" , beauty is truer than life, even if is
forever.
4
Jane Austen
16 December 1775 – Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire.
1795 – 1798 she wrote first drafts and versions of novels which were not published till
many years later.
1801 – her father retired and settled with his wife and daughters in Bath, which Jane
Austen never liked much.
1811 – Sense and Sensibility was published anonymously «by a lady», and the novel
won favourable notices. From then on her novels were well received by the critics and
the general public.
1813 – Pride and Prejudice came out. Austen’s major novels include Sense and
Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816),
Persuasion and Northanger Abbey (1818).
1817 – Jane Austen died in Winchester at the age of 41. During her lifetime, her works
were all published anonymously. Her first novel to be published, Sense and Sensibility,
was simply 'By a Lady'. Her next published novel, Pride and Prejudice, was 'By the Author
of Sense and Sensibility.
Jane Austen’s novel are remarkable for their limited setting and characters. All her
novels are set in the provincial world of southern England which she knew from her own
experience, and the characters generally belong to the rural middle class, the landed
gentry and the country clergy.
Jane Austen’s characters are very precisely described: for each we are given the
essential facts that make up her/his place in society, age, marital situation and social
position. Her characters are round characters and show the author’s fine psychological
insight and remarkable narrative skill.
Her novels of manners were usually set in closed communities. The microcosms she
explored were ideal places in which characters dealt with universal themes such as
self-realization, growth, prejudice, social conventions and class prejudices.
5
NARRATIVE STYLE
Narrative style: Austen used the technique of free indirect speech; this offers the third
person omniscient narrator the advantages of a first-person narrative. The narrator has
access to the thoughts and feelings of the characters and describes these to the reader.
The narrator of the novel also frequently adds commentary about characters and their
actions, which shapes the reader’s perception.
Austen’s descriptions of life depend on dialogue and irony. Dialogue is clear, witty,
precise; it renders common place things and characters interesting. Each character has
a distinctive voice and it’s possible to explore their inner motivation. Irony is an
instrument used by Austen to highlight social hypocrisy, to critique the potrayal of
women in 18thcentury sentimental and gothic novels and to show the contradictions of
social conventions. Another typical element in her novels is the ʺhappy endingʺ, which
usually corresponded to the marriage between the two protagonists of the story.
Central element: the development and happy ending of the love story. Both characters,
Elizabeth and Darcy, have to overcome their pride and their prejudices towards each
other. Elizabeth’s pride makes her misjudge Darcy and reject his proposal on the basis
of her personal prejudices. Also Darcy has to overcome his pride and prejudices for
Elizabeth’s modest social position. Only when they overcome their «pride and prejudice»
they can know each other and get married.
6
DARCY’S PROPOSAL