Literature - Flashcards for memorisation

JUMPING OFF A BUILDING

What is romanticism?

The encouragement of feelings, innocence and spirituality, instead of capitalism and industrialized society.

What is the age of enlightenment?

The age of enlightenment was an intellectual and cultural movement in the eighteenth century that places reason and science over superstition and blind faith.

What proceeded the romantics and why?

The age of enlightenment proceeded the romantic period. This is because we tend to see a shift between progressive and conservative once a society leans too much to one side.

What was the romantic period?

A period all prioritizing emotion over reason, an appreciation of nature, rebellion against elitism and promotion of childhood innocence.

Intro Quote

“Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go”. This quote by an anonymous author is accentuated by John Keates in the poem “To Autumn”, written in 1820.

Languages Features - Idea

“To Autumn” promotes the idea that beauty and death go hand in hand and without death, beauty could not exist.

Language Features Points:

• Figurative Language - 1:

  • Personification - 14/16

  • Metaphor - 15

  • Metaphor - 17
    

• Imagery and Aesthetics - 2:

  • Abundant Imagery - Stanza 1

  • Calm and Tranquil - Stanza 2

  • Gloomy and Dark - Stanza 3

• Prosody - 3:

  • consonance/assonance - whole (18 - 1 + 2, 9 - 3)

  • homophone - 28 & 30

  • formation of ode/lyricism - whole

Language Features - First Para Sentence

Through his metaphorical expression, Keates is able to suggest that autumn is a season that brings both life and borders on the edge of death.

Language Features - Second Para Sentence

Additionally, John Keates employs rich and vivid imagery to evoke the beauty of autumn while suggesting that Autumn’s inevitable decline is beautiful in its own way.

Language Features - Third Para Sentence

Lastly, Keates suggests that without winter, autumn would never be beautiful and thus, without death, life would never be beautiful.

Conclusion :3

Ultimately, John Keates, wishes for us to understand how beauty, life, death and time are all key parts of our world. This is such a thought that is often unvalued in our times, within the rush and hectic nature of today’s society. Humanities hubris is slowly become the downfall of itself, and Keats is trying to convey this to us. Despite being relevant during that time period, it is even more so now, it is vital and it is perhaps this that makes the poem more beautiful.

Language Features - Paragraph 1 In Depth

1. Representation of autumn in 14-16 is not defined as a cruel/angry reaper but rather as a sleepy and relaxed entity. This takes the power of death down, and still links the autumn and death.

2. Metaphor in line 15 allows the reader to see what autumn brings us. Autumn is viewed as both a separation of life and death as well bringing harvest.

3. The metaphor in line 17 depicts autumn as the “transition” between peace and demise, between pain, pleasure and the another cycle of pain.

Language Features - Paragraph 2 In Depth

1. Imagery in the first stanza evokes a sense of fruitfulness and vastness, creating a moment where one can have everything and anything they want.

2. The calm and tranquil imagery shows the labor and peaceful work that is done to procure the abundance, creating a moment of the calm before the storm.

3. Gloomy and dark language after all the imagery in the previous parts work together to make the last part less heavy while uplifting the other two parts.

Language Features - Paragraph 3 In Depth

1. Consonance and assonance work together to show the abundance and eventual decline of said abundance, showing that without winter, we would be complacent and non appreciative of autumn.

2. The use of the homophone of born, without actually saying born, shows that the beauty of life can only be contained without death.

3. The formation of the ode shows that without the decline, autumn wouldn’t be highlighted and the ode wouldn’t be as beautiful.

Language Features - Para 1 Ending

Within this time, we can see that the author valued the understanding of balance within the natural world and believed that Autumn is a season that was necessary to bring both life and death to the world.

Language Features - Para 2 Ending

Due to all of these grand pieces of imagery, the poem’s decline is made less dull and soft and rather, creates extra beauty in the first 2 stanza and supports the 3rd stanza.

Language Features - Para 3 Ending

While this would be odd if this was any other ode, Keates has made sure that autumn is highlighted due to the decline in the end stanza, and without that, this poem would not be anything more than a dedication to autumn with no meaning and wouldn’t be beautiful.

Context - First Para Sentence

“Choose only one master - nature”. Rembrandt has been able to encapsulate the ideas that Keates wanted to convey with his poem “To Autumn”.

Context - Second Para Sentence

In John Keats' To Autumn, beauty and death are intertwined, reflecting the natural cycle of life.

Context - Third Para Sentence

Within the poem “To Autumn”, John Keates explores the need to embrace the present, rather than worrying about the future.

Context - Idea

Keates provides an insight into his feelings about the natural world and the connection we as humans have with it. Alongside this, Keates explores the link between beauty and death as well as the necessity to embrace the present moment, rather than the before or after.

Context - Points:

• Connection with Nature - 1:

  • ct: Rebellion of enlightenment

  • consonance and assonance - whole

  • ct: read a bunch of other autumn books lol !!

  • enjambment - stanza 1

  • ct: job as a surgeon

  • parallelism - stanza 1

• Beauty coincides with death - 2:

  • ct: death of family 😓 womp womp

  • Imagery between 2 and 3 - Stanza 2 & 3

  • ct: practioning as a doctor saw a lot of death

  • metaphors - 15 and 17

  • ct: engagment to fanny brawne !!

  • formation of ode/lyricsics - whole

• Embrace the presentt <3 - 3:

  • ct: focusing on brother then brother dying

  • personification of autumn - 15/17

  • ct: impending sense of doom and death

  • ceasura’s - whole

  • ct: knew he was going to die, aware of maturity of life

  • allusion of animals - 27 ~ 33

Context - First Para Sentence

“Choose only one master - nature”. Rembrandt has been able to encapsulate the ideas that Keates wanted to convey with his poem “To Autumn”.

Context - Second Para Sentence

In John Keats' To Autumn, beauty and death are intertwined, reflecting the natural cycle of life.

Context - Third Para Sentence

Within the poem “To Autumn”, John Keates explores the need to embrace the present, rather than worrying about the future.

Context - Paragraph 1 In Depth

1. The romantic period was a period formed in rebellion to the enlightenment and Keates stood up for it as seen through the use of constants and vowel repetition, creating a theme of abundance in nature.

2. He read other works like “To Autumn” in Virgil's Georgics, “Front at Midnight” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and an Essay on Autumn by Leigh Hunt and due to this, the lines flow or some shit i don’t fucking know please help

3. Being a surgeon made him allowed him to view horrors and problems with a society and thus, he connect points about nature and what it gives us.

Context - Paragraph 2 In Depth

1. Being young, he saw the death of a bunch of his family, including his dad and mum (due to tuberculosis). However, Keates saw that without all of this, he couldn’t properly appreciate his ups and he wouldn’t have a purpose and this reflects on his use of imagery with the stark difference between tranquil and sad

2. Expresses his practicing within being a surgeon and all the death he’s seen and how necessary it was experience all of that to be able to be at peace with the idea of daeth. This can be seen at how he approaches death in the metaphors in like 15/17. The calming wind seperates the heavy from light or death from life and the fume from poppies mean that one transitions to peace without pain.

3. Married Fanny Brawne, knowing he was going to die anyways and embraced the moment, knowing he was going to die. This shows in the formation with the first 2 stanza’s being sweetened and amplified by the 3rd poem being worse.

Context - Paragraph 3 In Depth

1. Having to care for his brother and not focusing on himself until his brother past allowed him to gain an appreciation for focusing on the present. This can be seen in the way he personifies autumn to make it a relatable figure to the reader and we should be relaxing rather than worrying.

2. Impending sense of doom and death meant that he needed to take the time to figure himself out and not worry about the future of his death. The ceasura’s make the reader stop and understand the meaning of the work and a understanding for the meaning of the moment.

3. Because he knew he was going to die, he gained a maturity on life and this shows in his writing. He uses allusions to animals that are regularly killed in the winter period but still happy and thriving in autumn to make us feel the same as the animals.

Context - Para 1 Ending

Essentially, Keates has encapsulated the meaning of how we connect with nature and is not a product of his own views but also a response to the poem’s context.

Context - Para 2 Ending

This shows the reader that without bad moments and death, life and happiness would almost not exist and the necessity for it.

Context - Para 3 Ending

With all of this, the reader is able to see the need to embrace the present rather than needing to focus on the future.

Context - Thesis

“To Autumn” communicates Romantic ideals concerning nature, death and beauty.