"Analysis of the Grasshopper and the Cricket"
In John Keats’s sonnet “On the Grasshopper and the Cricket”, he expresses his love and admiration for nature and illustrates this attitude by depicting the two “musicians” of different seasons in nature---- the grasshopper and the cricket. Keats writes about a summer and a winter scene in the two parts of the poem divided by the first eight lines and the last six lines. The grasshopper is nature’s “musician” in summer and the cricket is the one in winter. Nature’s “musicians” change as the seasons change, but the music of nature never ends. Keats uses this example to express the theme that the beauty and the cycle of life in nature never dies.
In the opening line, Keats asserts, “The poetry of earth is never dead.” (1). He proves the statement by describing a summer scene in nature where all the “all the birds are faint with the hot sun, /And hide in cooling trees” (2-3) and the grasshopper takes the lead and sing “[from] hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead.”(4) The birds represent the “musicians” in spring, and they stop their music in summer because of the hot weather. However, the grasshopper is not afraid of the heat; it takes the place of nature’s “musician” in summer. The change of the musicians of nature from birds to the grasshoppers stands for the cycle of life and refers back to the first line that “[the] poetry of earth is never dead.”(1) Keats then describes the grasshopper’s happiness in nature in the next lines. “In summer luxury, - he has never done/With his delights; for when tired out with fun/He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. (6-8) The word “luxury” and the imagery “pleasant weed” express a happy and positive tone and shows the author’s love and admiration towards nature. Personifications in the first eight lines such as “faint”, “hide” and “takes the lead” suggests Keats’s love for the creatures in nature as well.
In the rest of the poem, line 8-14, Keats repeats his claim that “the poetry of earth is ceasing never(8)” and then
In the opening line, Keats asserts, “The poetry of earth is never dead.” (1). He proves the statement by describing a summer scene in nature where all the “all the birds are faint with the hot sun, /And hide in cooling trees” (2-3) and the grasshopper takes the lead and sing “[from] hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead.”(4) The birds represent the “musicians” in spring, and they stop their music in summer because of the hot weather. However, the grasshopper is not afraid of the heat; it takes the place of nature’s “musician” in summer. The change of the musicians of nature from birds to the grasshoppers stands for the cycle of life and refers back to the first line that “[the] poetry of earth is never dead.”(1) Keats then describes the grasshopper’s happiness in nature in the next lines. “In summer luxury, - he has never done/With his delights; for when tired out with fun/He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. (6-8) The word “luxury” and the imagery “pleasant weed” express a happy and positive tone and shows the author’s love and admiration towards nature. Personifications in the first eight lines such as “faint”, “hide” and “takes the lead” suggests Keats’s love for the creatures in nature as well.
In the rest of the poem, line 8-14, Keats repeats his claim that “the poetry of earth is ceasing never(8)” and then