Ode on Melancholy

By John Keats
 About the Author: John Keats
 John Keats was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main
figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord
Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his works having been in
publication for only four years before his death from tuberculosis at
the age of 25.
 Romanticism in English Literature
 Romanticism was an artistic and literary movement that came to England in the late 18th and early
19th centuries and had a profound impact on English literature. English Romantic literature is
characterized by a love of nature, emphasis on emotions, and admiration of beauty.
 Romanticism was largely a reaction against the structures of classicism. It prized nature over the
industrialized city, emotion over reason, and the individual over institutions like the church and state.
 https://study.com/academy/lesson/romanticism-in-literature-definition-characteristics.html
 What is an Ode?
 An ode is a lyrical stanza written in praise for a person, event, or thing. The form
developed in Ancient Greece and were usually set to music.
 An ode is a form of poetry such as sonnet or elegy. Ode is a literary technique that
may be complicated, but not very long. In this type of poems, poets praise people,
natural scenes, and abstract ideas
 Many of the ideas and themes evident in Keats’s great odes are Romantic concerns:
the beauty of nature, the relation between imagination and creativity, the response
of the passions to beauty and suffering, and the passing of time.
 In 1819, John Keats composed six odes, which are among his most famous and
well-regarded poems. Keats wrote the first five poems, "Ode on a Grecian Urn",
"Ode on Indolence", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale", and "Ode to
Psyche" in quick succession during the spring. As a whole, the odes represent
Keats's attempt to create a new type of short lyrical poem, which influenced later
generations.
Melancholy throughout history
Definition: a gloomy state of mind, especially
when habitual or prolonged; depression.
Throughout history, melancholy had always
been seen as an illness, the condition of having
too much black bile, considered in ancient and
medieval medicine to cause gloominess and
depression.
As a junior doctor, Keats would have almost
certainly come into the definition and the
treatment of melancholy during his training,
which is why this particular poem, Ode on
Melancholy, is so interesting in its writing.
 How is melancholy portrayed in the poem?

 Contrary to what people believed, Keats portrays melancholy as something

beautiful. The tone of the poem is maybe the most positive and optimistic of
all his Odes.

 Keats addresses the Reader, a sufferer of Melancholy, and tells him not to
worry – that beauty and pain are intertwined in the world, and that both offer
a fuller view of life when occurring in tandem.
1st stanza
 Tells the sufferer what not to do when they are sad.
 Not to look for oblivion, that is to say, not to try to ignore of forget their pain.
 “No, no, go not to Lethe”
 Not to try self-poisoning, such as drinking alcohol or consuming drugs.
 “its poisonous wine” “make not your rosary of yew-berries”
 Not to become obsessed with depressing thoughts or the idea of death.
 “Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be/Your mournful Psyche”
 Keats warns the reader that kind of behaviour will only hide the problem, so the sufferer must see the pain
for what it really is.
 “For shade to shade Will come too drowsily,/And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.”
 Second Stanza
 Keats tell the reader what to do when feeling sad:
 “when the melancholy fit shall fall”
 Embrace sadness by seeking out beauty in the natural world.
 “Then glut they sorrow on a morning rose”
 Focus on beauty, realize the co-existance of joy and despair.
 As the greatest beauty in the world is temporary, we should enjoy it while it lasts.
 “Or if they mistress some rich anger shows/ Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,/ And feed
deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.”
 Third Stanza
 The poet explains these ideas: beauty and melancholy are thus linked by their
impermanence.
 Pleasure and pain go together.
 “Ay, in the very temple of Delight/Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine”
 The juxtaposition of love and loss is inevitable.
 “She dwells with Beauty-Beauty that must die”
 Melancholy, beauty and time are deeply intertwined.
 What’s the message of the poem?
 It encourages people to embrace sadness, by acknowledging its
presence.
 Sorrow is a fundamental part of beauty, joy and pleasure.
 Things are made beautiful by the fact that they cannot last.
 Nothing good can last forever.
 It is precisely the fact that joy will come to an end that makes the
experience of joy such a ravishing one; the fact that beauty dies makes
the experience of beauty sharper and more thrilling.