Ode “To Autumn”

by John Keats
Introduction
ODE “To Autumn”
Poet: John Keats
Structure: Classical (Ode)
Literary Period:
Romantic (18th -19th century)
Rhyming Scheme:
ABAB (First part-first four
lines of the stanza)
CDEDCCE (Second part of
First Stanza-last seven lines
of the stanza)
CDECDDE (Second part of
Second and Third Stanzas)
Keats wrote six odes,
 Ode to Grecian Urn
 Ode on Indolence
 Ode on Melancholy
 Ode to Nightingale
 Ode to Psyche
Ode to Autumn is the last one
written by the poet in 1819
just two years before his
death
 ODE
 It is a type of lyrical stanza, composed to glorify an event connected to
nature.

 These types of poems are intended to be sung.

General features:
 Lengthy

 Serious in subject matter

 Elevated words and style

 Elaborates structure in stanza

Ode “To Autumn”

 Keats vividly highlights the beginning, middle and end of

season in his ode “To Autumn”.

 In England the season of autumn is characterized by

ripening of fruits.

 He broke the conventional connection of autumn to sadness

and loneliness and introduced it as a season of blessings.
First Stanza
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; 
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, 
And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
Until they think warm days will never cease;  
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.”
Explanation
 The poet addresses the season as if it were a person.
He wrote that sun and the autumn are best friends
who are planning how to make fruits grow and make
them ripe so that they can be ready for harvesting.

 The trees are filled with numerous apples, the gourd

swells and the hazelnuts become fleshy.
 Autumn is not just a time when things are turning brown. It
also sets the stage for the return of spring.

 When the fruits ripe the seeds drop which later become
flowers. The bees are fond of flowers whose cells are
overfilled with honey and they start believing that summer
will remain forever.
 Second Stanza
“Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, 
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
  Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers: 
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 
Steady thy laden head across a brook;  
by a cyder-press, with patient look, 
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.”
 Explanation
 Now the poet is asking a question that where to find the autumn.

 It is apparent in the form of a granary to store the harvested

grain.

 In the second stanza the poet personified the autumn as a women

sitting relaxed on the granary, a gentle wind is blowing and hair
of the women are flapping.
 It might also be on a furrow on a ploughed field, sleeping on the
half reaped corn. Poppy flowers made it feel sleepy.

 The autumn now becomes the “gleaner”, who is collecting the

stalks missed during threshing.

 Autumn can also be seen as a worker carrying a load of fruit on

his head.

 It can also be the one, who is sitting at the cider press and
watching nectar coming out of the fruits.
Stanza 3
“Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, 
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies”
Explanation
 In the beginning of last stanza the poet is saying that
people often praise spring but autumn also has its
particular songs.

 Then the autumn is described as a time of sunset when the

dim sunlight. The clouds look like flowers in the sky.

 Although the time of autumn is ending but its end is soft

and gentle

 As the ending appears gnats, birds, animals start mourning.

Themes
 Man and Natural World
Interaction between man and plants is indicated
while the unpredictability of nature is also revealed.
 Season of bounties
Bounties to sustain life in the form of fruits are
highlighted
 Contentment
Satisfaction attained from the season is also
personified such as “…. careless on a granary floor”
 Time
The evidence of passing time is shown by the poet. In the
beginning the natural world is at the peak of bloom but by
the third stanza the sun is setting.

 Transformation
The whole poem is the transformation from autumn to winter

 Mortality
Indications of mortality and ending can be seen in the first
and the last stanza as the bees are considering warmth to
remain forever while in the last stanza mourning is to arrive
in the form of winter.
Poetic Devices
 Personification:
- “Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun” 
- “Thee sitting careless on a granary floor”
 Apostrophe
- “Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?”
- “Where are the songs of Spring?”
 Imagery
- “thatch eyed”, “mossed”, “cottage trees”, “plump the
hazel shells”, “fume of poppies”, “sweet kernel”,
“clammy cells”, “winnowing wind”, “imagery with
music”
 Similes
- “…like a gleaner”

 Alliteration
- “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With a sweet kernel to set budding more  
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?”

 Rhyme
ABAB
CDEDCCE
CDECDDE