Critical Essays on Keats poems Essays

Critical Essays on Keats poems Essays Critical Essays on Keats poems Paper Critical Essays on Keats poems Paper Essay Topic: Keats Poems and Letters Language is used effectively in both odes to create mood. In the opening stanza of Ode to a Nightingale, there is a sense of sluggishness, suggested by the heavy alliterative d, p and m sounds when Keats describes his heartache at hearing the song of the nightingale, ambivalently experiencing both joy and pain. Compared with the first half of the first stanza, the second half is full of light and sensual assonantal sounds such as beechen, green and ease. In this particular ode, there is a concentration on the senses and frequent use of synaethesia. In the first stanza, the visual can be said to evoke the aural and vice versa where the birds plot is described as melodious. In the second stanza, Keats manages to convey the taste of wine with reference to colour, song, dance and sensation, Tasting of Flora Dance, an Proveni al song, and sunburnt mirth. The fourth stanza combines sight with movement in there is not light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown, and in the fifth stanza there is emphasis put on the senses of touch and smell in soft incense. In the opening line of Ode on Grecian Urn, Keats makes use of a long drawn out i sound with his repetition in still unravished bride of quietness. Since Ode on a Grecian Urn is about a work of art, Keats draws attention to the fact that his ode is a work of art with the use of assonance, echoes and insistent sound patterns. His use of repetition in the second stanza, unheard echoes heard, sweeter sweet and pipes pipe, is effectively combined with the assonance of ears endeard and no tone. It is the frequent use of parallelism, constant personification of the urn, and the invocations and exclamations of this ode that highlights the specific language used for the reader. This ode uses what can be said to be poetic language as it draws attention to its artifice, to the fact that the poem has been consciously and artfully constructed. Both odes are written in ten-line stanzas, however, Ode to a Nightingale differs from Ode on a Grecian Urn in that it is metrically variable. It also differs from the other odes in that the rhyme scheme is the same in every stanza and consists of Keatss most basic rhyme scheme of all the odes, as it follows the scheme AB AB CDE CDE. Comparably, Ode on a Grecian Urn follows a similar structure to Ode on Melancholy and is made up of a two-part rhyme scheme. This rhyme scheme helps to create a sense of a two-part thematic structure where the first four lines of each stanza roughly outline the subject of the stanza, and the last six lines develop it. The final two lines of Ode on a Grecian Urn, in which the speaker imagines the urn speaking its message to mankind, Beauty is truth, truth beauty, have proved to be amongst the most difficult to interpret of Keatss work, along with the final lines of Ode to a Nightingale, where the speaker asks Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Do I wake or sleep? Keatss final question on the status of his experience in Ode to a Nightingale is problematic for a number of reasons. Whilst some critics have affirmed that the poem is about the inadequacy of the imagination, others believe there is a greater kind of ambivalence in Keatss attitude. It has been argued that Keats still suggests through his final question that such a vision or experience is possible, or at least, something he longs for. The last two lines of Ode on a Grecian Urn, Beauty is truth, truth beauty, is perplexing and has sparked much debate. However, it has been interpreted in several ways, mainly, in that it could be the speaker addressing the urn and it could also be the urn addressing mankind. It has been argued that if it is the speaker addressing the urn, then it would seem to indicate their awareness of the urns limitations, however, if it is the urn addressing mankind, it would appear that Keatss message is that beauty and truth are one and the same. There are significant differences between Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn, as in the latter, there is a sense of formality not experienced in Ode to a Nightingale. Most notably, there is no I and the focus is not so much on the mind as on the work of art, the urn itself. The suppression of Ode to a Nightingale is matched in Ode on a Grecian Urn, and in many ways, can be said to be companion poems. In the later poem, the speaker confronts a created art-object not subject to any of the limitations of time, whilst in Ode to a Nightingale, Keatss speaker achieves creative expression through the nightingales song which is spontaneous and without physical manifestation. In conclusion, though there are both evident similarities between the two odes, it is clear that their differences outnumber them. Whilst Ode on a Grecian Urn is much more formal, Ode to a Nightingale is arguably the more personal, if not the most personal out of Keatss odes. Perhaps it is the opening of the ode with the statement My heart aches that makes the ode appear subjective, whilst Ode on a Grecian Urn combines both subjective poetic expression but also objective historical expression. Although similar in format, the odes differ in their rhyme schemes and also it is the many paradoxes of Ode on a Grecian Urn that differentiate it from the Ode to a Nightingale. One of the many paradoxes found in this ode is that of the urn itself, as it is silent but is also said to be a historian that can communicate. Ultimately, one can appreciate that there are a variety of comparative and contrasting elements of the two odes, however individual each one may be. Bibliography Glennis Byron York Notes Advanced, John Keats Selected Poems Longman Literature Guides, Critical Essays on Keats poems and letters Helen Vendler, The Odes of John Keats