Keats odes

To Autumn

praises autumn and its abundance and transition into winter + with its fleeting beauty and undertones of impending decay

to autumn context

Keats, a Romantic poet finding comfort and consolation in nature

to autumn form

follows regular ode of three parts, strophe, antistrophe and epode

ode to psyche

Speaker sees Psyche asleep in Eros arms and awestruck by her beauty explains how he will build her a temple not with stone but with his mind

the poem explore the power and brilliance of the imagination

ode to psyche context

a beautiful women loved by the God of Cupid (god of love)

he visited her each night but left at sunrise to disguise his identity as he was a God and she a mortal

one night she lit a lamp to see who he was, this awoke him angrily

she was then reunited with him and became immortal through their love

she is often represented as a butterfly and is the God of the soul and mind

relationship of cupid and psyche = what keats wants with poetry

ode to psyche structure

english version on a Pindaric ode (three part structure, strophe, antistrophe, epode) is iregular

flows more freely like a stream of thought

stanza 1 starts with a regular rhyme scheme which becomes more random = creative freedom, natural spontanaity = imagination has no rules or boundaries

ode psyche tableaus

• T1 - uses language of erotic experience -sensory/sensuous - sight, touch, sound + mystical quality of sex + set in an ancient mythical forest - bower, represents a place outside his conscious mind, accessed through dreams + visions

• T2 - from wild natural setting it moves to a cultivated garden (poetic version of love, lasting but not real) + imagined more consciously

ode to a nightingale

He feels depressed and numb then he hears the nightingale which makes him happy because the the nightingale is happy then these intense feelings of happiness turns to sadness -pleasure/pain - intense pleasure becomes painful

he longs for the oblivion that alcohol gives and wants to fade away and forget the troubles that everything is mortal

he tells the nightingale to leave in which he will follow not through alcohol but through poetry

the thought of death seems appealing but then he wouldnt hear the nightingale

his imagination fails him he cant tell whether the nightingale was a vision or a dream awake or asleep

ode to a nightingale - context

Myth of Philomena, she was raped by her brother and her tongue was cut out so she couldn’t speak her truth she was then turned into a nightingale which represents melancholy and suffering

keats turns on his imagination at the end for not offering a refuge from the real world of pain rejecting it as its only transient

ode to a nightingale form

regular ode

consistent 10 line stanzas shows Keats’s controlled, serious and reflective tone

ode on a grecian urn

speaker looks at the urn and marvels at the different scene’s beauty but they’re frozen in time - perfect but being static is limiting. The art is a beautiful work of art which inhabits an eternal dimension while he decays and dies while the artefact lives on in all its vigour and life

art = beauty + perfect + limiting

life = real + fulfilling + mortal

end- art captures an idealised beauty that transcends time

ode on a grecian urn - context

1816 Elgin marbles arrive in England and are put on display in the British museum, these were the sculptures of Parthenon purchased by Lord Elgin from the Turks - controversial as the Greeks have asked for them back but have been denied

ode on a grecian urn form

ode allows for more of a prolonged examination of the urn giving the speaker space to raise questions and concerns

ode on a melancholy

how to deal and not deal with deep sadness - not through death or intoxication instead melancholy should be embraced

also establishes a link between the good things in life and melancholy as all good things are doomed

poem warns us of trying to escape melancholy/worries through art and nature

ode on a melancholy context

lethe- greek underworld river the dead were obliged to drink from it in order to forget everything

scarab beetles- worshipped by Egyptians as symbols of immortality

keats originally intended for the poem to be about a hero’s quest to find the godess of melancholy

ode on a melancholy form

first two lines are very irregular in metric = troubles of the melancholic mind

in drear- nighted december

the speaker looks at an icy midwinter with envy, bc the trees and waters are frozen stiff, the speaker argues, they’re lucky bc they can’t remember a time when they were warm and alive whereas humans can

in drear-nighted december context

the poem was written at the same time he wrote a now famous letter to his brothers, outlining his concept of ‘negative capability’ - “when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries and doubts”

writers should embrace uncertainties and ambiguities and contradiction rather than try to reconcile it

in poem - how we should share natures contentment even in darkness and coldness of winter

he explores the concept of senselessness his feelings cant be expressed even through rhyme this lack of expression is displayed through the aurally incongruous line of each stanza - poetry cannot meet the demands of negative capability bc it can’t capture uncertainty

in drear nighted december form

keats’s own invention of three octave stanzas

rhyme creates playful melancholy

rhyming last line of the stanza links the stanzas with a sad inevitability cant truly describe pain cant put pain into words