John Keats 1795-1821: Ode To A Grecian Urn (1819)

John Keats 1795-1821
Ode to a Grecian Urn (1819)
LOGO
John Keats 1795-1821
www.themegallery.com
LOGO
Life
 John Keats, one of the greatest
English poets and a major figure in
the Romantic movement, was born in
1795 in Moorefield, London. His
father died when he was eight and
his mother when he was 14; these
sad circumstances drew him
particularly close to his two brothers,
George and Tom, and his sister
Fanny.
LOGO
 Keats was well educated at a school
in Enfield, where he began a Keats
was well educated at a school in
Enfield, where he began a translation
of Virgil's Aeneid. In 1810 he was
apprenticed to an apothecary-
surgeon. His first attempts at writing
poetry date from about 1814, and
include an Ìmitation' of the
Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser.
LOGO
In 1815 he left his apprenticeship and
became a student at Guy's Hospital,
London; one year later, he abandoned
the profession of medicine for poetry.
LOGO
 Keats' first volume of poems was
published in 1817. It attracted some
good reviews, but these were
followed by the first of several harsh
attacks by the influential Blackwood's
Magazine. Undeterred, he pressed on
with his poem Èndymion', which was
published in the spring of the
following year.
LOGO
 Keats toured the north of England and
Scotland in the summer of 1818,
returning home to nurse his brother
Tom, who was ill with tuberculosis.
After Tom's death in December he
moved into a friend's house in
Hampstead, now known as Keats
House.
LOGO
 There he met and fell deeply in love
with a young neighbour, Fanny
Brawne. During the following year,
despite ill health and financial
problems, he wrote an astonishing
amount of poetry, including `The Eve
of St Agnes', 'La Belle Dame sans
Merci', Òde to a Nightingale' and
`To Autumn'.
LOGO
 His second volume of poems
appeared in July 1820; soon
afterwards, by now very ill with
tuberculosis, he set off with a friend
to Italy, where he died the following
February.
LOGO
 Keats and his friend Joseph Severn
arrived in Rome, after an arduous
journey, in November 1820. They
found lodgings in a house near the
Spanish Steps. Keats rallied a little at
first, and was able to take gentle
walks and rides, but by early
December he was confined to bed,
extremely ill with a high fever.
LOGO
 Severn nursed him devotedly
throughout the next few distressing
and painful weeks. Keats died
peacefully, clasping his friend's hand,
on 23 February 1821.
LOGO
Ode on Melancholy
LOGO
LOGO
LOGO
Ode on Melancholy
 Summary
The three stanzas of the "Ode on
Melancholy" address the subject of
how to cope with sadness.
LOGO
Ode on Melancholy
 Summary
The first stanza tells what not to do:
The sufferer should not "go to
Lethe," or forget their sadness.
※For shade to shade will come too

drowsily, And drown the wakeful
anguish of the soul. (Line9-10)
LOGO
Ode on Melancholy
 Summary
In the second stanza, the speaker
tells the sufferer what to do in place
of the things he forbade in the first
stanza. When afflicted with "the
melancholy fit," the sufferer should
instead overwhelm his sorrow with
natural beauty, glutting it on the
morning rose, "on the rainbow of the
salt sand-wave," or in the eyes of his
beloved.
LOGO
Ode on Melancholy
 Summary

In the third stanza, the speaker explains these
injunctions, saying that pleasure
pleasure and
and pain
pain are
inextricably linked: Beauty must die, joy is fleeting,
fleeting,
and the flower of pleasure is forever.
※ “Turning
※ Turning to
to poison
poison while the bee-mouth sips." The
speaker says that the shrine of melancholy is inside
the "temple of Delight," but that it is only visible if
one can overwhelm oneself with joy until it reveals
its center of sadness, by "burst[ing] Joy's grape
against his palate
palate fine."
fine." The
The man
man who
who can dodo this
this
shall "taste the sadness" of melancholy's might and
"be among her cloudy trophies hung."
LOGO
Ode on Melancholy
Vocabulary and Allusions
 Stanza I

Line
Line 1, 1, Lethe:
Lethe: river
river in
in the
the underworld
underworld Hades
Hades in
in which
which
souls
souls about
about toto be
be reborn
reborn bathed
bathed toto forget
forget
the
the past;
past; hence,
hence, river
river of
of forgetfulness.
forgetfulness.
Line
Line 2, 2, wolf's-bane:
wolf's-bane: poison
poison
Line
Line 4, 4, nightshade:
nightshade: poison
poison
Proserpine:
Proserpine: the
the queen
queen ofof the
the underworld.
underworld.
Proserpine
Proserpine was was kidnapped
kidnapped by by Pluto
Pluto
and
and taken
taken toto Hades,
Hades, his
his kingdom.
kingdom. HerHer
mother
mother Demeter,
Demeter, the
the goddess
goddess of of
fertility
fertility and
and grain,
grain, grieve
grieve for
for her
her loss
loss
and
and the
the earth
earth became
became sterile.
sterile.
Line
Line 5, 5, yew-berries:
yew-berries: symbol
symbol of of mourning.
mourning. The
The yew
yew isis
traditionally
traditionally associated
associated with
with mourning.
mourning.
rosary: prayer beads.
rosary: prayer beads.
LOGO
Ode on Melancholy
 Stanza I
Line 6, beetle:
beetle: The Egyptians
Egyptians regarded
regarded the
beetle as
as sacred; as as a
a symbol of
resurrection,
resurrection, aa jewel-beetle
jewel-beetle oror
scarab
scarab was
was placed
placed in tombs.
death-moth:
death-moth: the
the death's head moth, so
called because its markings
resemble a human skull.
Line 7, 7, Psyche: in Greek, the soul or mind as
well as butterfly
butterfly (used
(used as its
emblem).
Line 8, 8, mysteries:
mysteries: secret
secret rites.
rites.
LOGO
Ode on Melancholy
 Stanza III
Line
Line 8, 8, palate:
palate: the
the roof
roof of
of the
the mouth,
mouth, hence,
hence, the
the
sense
sense ofof taste;
taste; sometimes,
sometimes,
intellectual
intellectual or
or aesthetic
aesthetic taste.
taste.

fine:
fine: refined,
refined, sensitive.
sensitive.
LOGO
Ode on Melancholy
 Form
"Ode on Melancholy," the shortest of
Keats's odes, is written in a very regular
form that matches its logical,
argumentative thematic structure. Each
stanza is ten lines long and metered in a
relatively precise iambic pentameter. The
first two stanzas, offering advice to the
sufferer, follow the same rhyme scheme,
ABABCDECDE; the third, which explains the
advice, varies the ending slightly, following
a scheme of ABABCDEDCE, so that the
rhymes of the eighth and ninth lines are
reversed in order from the previous two
stanzas.
LOGO
LOGO

John Keats 1795-1821: Ode To A Grecian Urn (1819)

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John Keats 1795-1821

Ode to a Grecian Urn (1819)

※For shade to shade will come too

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