Ode to the Autumn by John Keats
‘Change, decay, mortality: these are the enemies in Keats’s odes.’
Write an essay investigating this assertion applied to to a Nightingale, on a Grecian Urn, to Melancholy and to Autumn.
VÁZQUEZ ESTÉVEZ, Brais
Term-paper
682284A LITERARY DEVELOPMENTS 1660-1900
2013 Spring term
English Philology
Faculty of Humanities
University of Oulu
Change, decay, and mortality were some of the most important motifs in Keats’s works and early nineteenth-century Romanticism. He relates death and the passing of the time with nature’s beauty. In some of the odes eternal beauty is achieved by death, and in others the present moment is the opportunity to appreciate nature’s beauty in a more passionate way. Possibly the fact that John Keats had been witness to the slow and painful deaths of many close relatives from tuberculosis, as had happened with his younger brother Tom the previous winter of the composition of the odes, it has made him more concerned with these three “enemies”. On the other hand Keats was in love with Fanny Brawne, so she could have been the inspiration to appreciate the nature’s beauty in time. I focus on Ode to Autumn and I compare it with Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Ode on Melancholy to depict my point of view. The four odes in question have similarities and differences related to these themes.
It is not known the order of composition of these four odes. As far as it is known, we can claim that Ode to Autumn is the last one of the four. It is said that Ode to Autumn is influenced by the daily walk that Keats used to have during his stay in Winchester. This ode has been rated as one of the most distinguished odes of English poetry ever. This is the culmination of Keats’s poetry or maybe a beginning of a new period of his life’s work stopped by tuberculosis and death. Its lexicon is rich, concrete, and appropriate to show the imagery of the season using a calm tone. There is no discursive language and irony. Language is precise
Write an essay investigating this assertion applied to to a Nightingale, on a Grecian Urn, to Melancholy and to Autumn.
VÁZQUEZ ESTÉVEZ, Brais
Term-paper
682284A LITERARY DEVELOPMENTS 1660-1900
2013 Spring term
English Philology
Faculty of Humanities
University of Oulu
Change, decay, and mortality were some of the most important motifs in Keats’s works and early nineteenth-century Romanticism. He relates death and the passing of the time with nature’s beauty. In some of the odes eternal beauty is achieved by death, and in others the present moment is the opportunity to appreciate nature’s beauty in a more passionate way. Possibly the fact that John Keats had been witness to the slow and painful deaths of many close relatives from tuberculosis, as had happened with his younger brother Tom the previous winter of the composition of the odes, it has made him more concerned with these three “enemies”. On the other hand Keats was in love with Fanny Brawne, so she could have been the inspiration to appreciate the nature’s beauty in time. I focus on Ode to Autumn and I compare it with Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Ode on Melancholy to depict my point of view. The four odes in question have similarities and differences related to these themes.
It is not known the order of composition of these four odes. As far as it is known, we can claim that Ode to Autumn is the last one of the four. It is said that Ode to Autumn is influenced by the daily walk that Keats used to have during his stay in Winchester. This ode has been rated as one of the most distinguished odes of English poetry ever. This is the culmination of Keats’s poetry or maybe a beginning of a new period of his life’s work stopped by tuberculosis and death. Its lexicon is rich, concrete, and appropriate to show the imagery of the season using a calm tone. There is no discursive language and irony. Language is precise