John Keats and Odes

John Keats and Four Odes.

John Keats was born in 1795 and died in 1821. He was the last but most perfect of all Romantic Poets.

Scott was known for merely telling stories, Wordsworth reforming poetry with moral law. And Shelley to admit impossible terms, Byron voicing own Egoism and political discourse. Keats has lived apart from men and from all of the political measures, like worshiping beauty as devote.

Ode On a Grecian Urn

             Ode on a GrecianUrn exprsses the poet’s love of romance, deep delight in nature and his interest in the Greek mythology. This poem includes thefamous line, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” In the poem, we find the reference to Flora, Dryad, and Bacchus that are all related to Greek mythology. Ths, it shows that Greek mythology had  deep hold on the mind of the poet. The language of the Ode is quite poetic. Ode on a Grecian Urn has concrete imagery, richness of coloring and the elements of charm and deep human interest. John Keats wrote Ode on a Grecian Urn in May 1819. Soon afterwards, he recited the poem when he went for a walk with his friend Haydon. It was Haydon who had introduced John Keats to the Elgin Marbles. It was Haydon who aroused his interest in Greek sculpture. The poem was published in January 1820.

       The inspiration of this ode has been derived from a marble urn belonging to Lord Holland. [urn = a container, especially a large round one on a stem, which is used for decorative purposes in a person's ashes or the powder that is left after a dead body has been burned]  A marble urn belonging to Lord Holland is still preserved in the garden at Holland House, Kensington. A marble urn of Lord Holland represents the scene of a sacrifice.  An altar [a type of table used in ceremonies in a Christian church] bearing fruit is carved in the center, nearby stands a priest, and above is a figure of a lover playing on a pipe.

   

Ode to a Nightingale

    Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale is considered one of the finest odes in English Literature.[Nightingale is a small brown European bird known especially for the beautiful song of the male bird which is usually heard during the night.] It reveals the highest imaginative power of the poet. The poem was inspired by the song of a nightingale which the poet heard in the gardens of his friend Charles Browne. The sweet music of the nightingale creates ecstasy in the mind of the poet. One morning, he took his chair from the breakfast table, put in on the grass-plot under a plum tree and composed scrapes of papers in his hand. Brown rescued the papers and found them to be the poem on the nightingale. Thus the poem is an expression of Keats’s feelings rising in his heart at the hearing of the melodious song of the bird.

The song of nightingale moves the poet to the depth of his heart and creates in him a heartache [anguish] and numbness [lack of numbness and feeling] as is created by the drinking of hemlock or some opiate. He thinks that the bird lives in a place of beauty. When he hears the nightingale’s song he is enchanted [thrilled] by its sweetness. His joy becomes so excessive that it changes into a kind of pleasant pain. He is filled with a desire to escape from the world of cares to the beautiful place of the bird.

    The poem presents the picture of the tragedy of human life. It brings out an expression pessimism and dejection of the poet. He composed this poem at the time when his heart was full of sorrow. His youngest brother Tom had died, the second one had gone abroad, and the poet himself was under the suspense and agony of the passionate love for Fanny Browne. All these happenings had brought a mood of sorrow in the poet. He could not suppress it. Thus the poet enjoys the pleasure in sadness. He feasts upon the very sadness in joy. This complex emotion gives a unique charm to the poem.

‘Ode to a Nightingale’ was written in May 1819, when Keats was residing at Hampsted, with his friend Brown. It was published in the same year. A Nightingale made its nest near the house of Charles Brown. One morning it inspired the poet to compose this poem. For two or three hours he sat in the garden attached to the house and gave expression to the poetic feeling on hearing the song of a Nightingale.

Ode  to Psyche

In Ode to Psyche (1819), Keats takes Psyche to be both a human maiden and the unworshipped goddess of the soul. The Legend of Psyche is based on Greek mythology. In order to understand Ode to Psyche in its true perspective and colour, it is necessary that we should understand the mythological details that are integrated in the poem. The legend of Psyche was told by Apulieus in The Golden Asse.The Golden Asse was translated by William Adington in 1566. As per the legend. Psyche was a king’s daughter in Greece.  She invited the jealousy of Aphrodite and Venus respectively because of her beauty. Psyche was one of the most beautiful of the Goddesses of the heaven. She was so beautiful that her beauty excited the jealousy of Venus, the Goddess of Love and Beauty. Due to this jealousy she decided to make Psyche behave in a shamefully ridiculous manner. As a result, she instructed her son Cupid (the young God of Love who is represented with the arrows of love with which he makes a hole in the hearts of his victims) to assume the shape of some horrible monster and then compel Psyche to fall in love with him in that dreadful form.

       However, when, Cupid saw the young and lovely Psyche, he himself fell in love with her and became her devoted lover. Cupid carried her to a beautiful valley, where he visited her every night in darkness.  When Cupid was sleeping at length, curiosity provoked Psyche to light a lamp and she recognized the beauty of God of Love, but a drop of hot oil fall on Cupid’s shoulder, the God awoke in anger and fled.

 Ode to Autumn

To Autumn was composed at Winchester in September 1819 and published in the volume of 1820. Keats wrote to his friend Reynolds from Winchester on September 22, 1819, “How beautiful the season is now; how fine is the air…I never like stubble [CROPS the short bits of dried plant stems left in a field after it has been cut] fields so much as now…this struck me so much in my Sunday’s walk that I composed upon it. (Keats in a letter from Winchester to John Hamilton Reynolds) What he composed is the ode To Autumn. Until a generation ago, Keats’ Ode To Autumn was loved and yet patronized as no more than a beautiful description of nature as an almost flawless piece of writing with nothing to say. It is now judged to be one of the greatest and richest of Keats’ poems. The poem is full of meaning. The distinctive appeal of To Autumn lies not merely in the degree of resolution [declaration or motion] but in the fact that in this short space so many different kind of resolution are attained. The odes; meaning is implicit rather than explicit. Autumn’s particular beauty is dependent upon it transience, [humanity] and the stanzas can be seen as moving through the season, beginning with pre harvest ripeness, moving to the repletion [complete, full] of harvest it self and concluding with the emptiness following the harvest but preceding winter.