Colin Leath
English 560 B, W. Rogers
2004-04-26
Critical Essay

Contents

• The use of imagery, sound effects, and poetic form in Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn
• Choice of genre and other structural aspects of Ode
• Sound effects and imagery in Ode and how they relate to Keats' thematic concerns
• Stanza 1
• Imagery
• Sound effects
• Stanza 2
• Imagery
• Sound effects
• Stanza 3
• Imagery
• Sound effects
• Stanza 4
• Imagery
• Sound effects
• Stanza 5
• Imagery
• Sound effects
• Conclusion
• Works cited
• Appendix: Keats' artistic and philosophic concerns in his own words

The use of imagery, sound effects, and poetic form in Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn

I will write about how Keats in Ode on a Grecian Urn uses imagery, sound effects, and poetic form first to create a beautiful poem and second to explore his concerns about art and life. My thesis is that poetic form, imagery, and sound effects work together effectively in Ode to help the reader share Keats' experience of his philosophic and artistic concerns.

Keats' philosophic and artistic concerns can be gleaned from his own words in his letters of 1817 to 1819. Ode was written in 1819. I include relevant excerpts from these letters in the Appendix on page 11, and summarize and comment on some of the points in these excerpts below.

Keats emphasizes, as do other Romantic poets, the power of imagination. What we find beautiful in the world or in our imagination is our truth, and as when Adam dreamed of a companion, beauty in our imagination becomes beauty in the world. Art is about beauty, not about teaching or persuasion. In this sense, Keats is a precursor of the Pre-Raphaelites, and diverges from Wordsworth. Byron shared the view that poetry should not be didactic, but not the opinion that the poetic medium should be used unobtrusively, foregrounding the subject, not the medium. Keats has a clear conception of the kind of experience poetry should elicit from the reader: poetry should not work by means of shock or strangeness, but from a subtle effect such that the poem touches on and magnifies fine elements of the reader's past experience. The experience of a poem should be like the witnessing of the sun's natural course throughout the day, leaving the reader in the glow of twilight. Keats does not believe happiness in this world will be arrived at in future stages in his life. He looks for happiness only in the present hour. Keats reminds us that as a poet he has no nature. None of these opinions are his. They are opinions of the character in which he was living at the time. I will look for these elements in Ode.

Choice of genre and other structural aspects of Ode

Keats' poem is after the form of the Horatian ode. Odes were one of the classical verse forms reintroduced and experimented with in the Romantic period. Romantic odes were often used in meditative tributes. This ode consists of five 10-line stanzas, each composed of a quatrain followed by a sestet. The quatrains have an ABAB rhyme scheme, sometimes employing off-rhymes. The sestets have a rhyme scheme that varies. On the printed page, the lines in the sestet that rhyme are indented by the same amount. The base meter of Ode is iambic pentameter.

This choice of form gives Keats more latitude and freedom to roam than would the limited-length sonnet, and the form is appropriate to his subject: a meditation on an urn. At the same time, this form and meter would be familiar with and unobtrusive to his readers, allowing them to focus on his subject, not the form.

Sound effects and imagery in Ode and how they relate to Keats' thematic concerns

I will look at the imagery and sound effects in each stanza and how they elaborate thematic concerns.

Stanza 1

Imagery

We know from the title this is an ode about a Grecian urn. The first four lines serve to present the urn first as a bride, then as a foster-child, then as a historian. These comparisons are productive, if fully visualized.

The urn is an as yet unravished bride of quietness. It is not a wife. This may mean that the pictures and engravings on the urn are as sharp as the day it was made; if it had been ravished by quietness, the figures on the urn might not speak to the poem's speaker as strongly as they do.

The urn is an adopted child of silence and slow time. This may refer to the urn as a product of the busyness and industry of an artisan's workshop that now, probably in a museum, stands separate from the bustle and noise of human life.

The urn is an historian of the woodlands, expressing a tale more sweetly than the poet can. The origin of the second claim is less straightforward, but Keats' later use of "sweet" in lines 11 and 12 suggests the sense of "sweet" meaning "pleasing to the senses." In lines 11 and 12, the speaker is suggesting that music in the imagination is sweeter than music actually heard. In line 4, the speaker says the urn thus expresses a tale more sweetly than our rhyme. The "thus" may refer to the ancient quality of the urn which this rhyme does not have. Whether due to the urn's antiquity or to the urn's presenting imagery in visual form instead of time- and culture-bound language, the greater sweetness of the urn's expression probably indicates that the speaker believes that the urn appeals more strongly to imagination than his poem can.

Beginning in line 5 and continuing to the end of the stanza, the speaker wonders in a dream-like way what stories the urn is portraying. Because so much is left to the speaker's imagination, he does not know whether gods or men are portrayed. That and other elements left to the imagination may contribute to the sweetness of the urn's tale.

Sound effects

Keats' initial lines are smooth, consistent with his poetical axiom that the progress of imagery should rise naturally as the sun. A notable effect in stanza 1 is the anaphora "What..?" beginning in line 5 and continuing through the end of the stanza. This, combined with shorter and shorter question phrases effectively shows the speaker getting caught up in his imagination of scenes on the urn. The caesuras at the end of each line in the initial quatrain contribute to their stately effect. The effect of sibilance in these lines is notable—it seems to smooth the lines, yet the sibilance itself is piercing. The spondee, "slow time," reinforces the imagery of that foot, while the trochaic inversion in the following foot varies the meter without necessarily contributing to imagery. Since Keats' lines and diction in this stanza are so smooth and unobtrusive, he is able to use less smooth and more obtrusive words with greater effect than would a poet who uses the medium in a more imposing way. "Slow time," "fring'd," "struggle," "pipes and timbrels," "ecstasy" all strongly reinforce in sound the visual imagery corresponding to their meanings.

Stanza 2

Imagery

The imagery in stanza 2 is straightforward, yet it is used to express complex ideas: unheard melodies are sweeter than heard melodies, so "pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone"; the lover who will never kiss, yet who will love forever. The "sweeter unheard melodies" is an expression of the speaker's great respect for imagination. Few of us would suggest that it is better to imagine hearing great music than to actually hear it. The whole stanza seems a tribute to the imagined ideal as being greater than the actual could ever be. Or perhaps it is a tribute to the process of imagining as being greater than any of its products.

Sound effects

The stanza's quatrain has not one line of full regular meter, while all the lines of the sestet can be read as regular. It is almost as if the speaker is playing a ditty not of tone, but of rhythm in the quatrain. The sestet begins a theme that continues through the first seven lines of stanza 3. In this theme regular iambic pentameter is maintained, and within lines words are repeated as one might do in the height of passion or when speaking to a child. There is particular emphasis on the "ver" sound, for example "nor ever, …lover, never, never." Every line of the sestet but the last is filled with "not" and "never." This causes tension to build that is resolved in the last line of the sestet.

Stanza 3

Imagery

The imagery in stanza three returns to themes and characters earlier introduced, continuing the theme began in the sestet of stanza 2. The tree will never shed its leaves; the melodist will pipe songs forever new. The final tercet of the stanza, however, is less clear. While "all" in line 28 could refer to tree, melodist, and lover, I take it to mean that "All breathing human passion" is far above the characters on the urn, and that human passion "leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, a burning forehead, and a parching tongue." And that this last tercet is intended as a contrast to the frozen idyll of life on the urn. Another possibility is that the figures on the urn are all breathing human passion—the human passion that made them—passion that leaves a heart over-sated and in sorrow, etcetera.

The value of songs of "no tone" is expanded upon, as the melodist is "For ever piping songs for ever new."

The word "happy" modifies "boughs," "melodist," and "love." The characterization of the love as "for ever warm…for ever panting, for ever young" is memorable and effective.

Sound effects

In continuing the theme began in the sestet of stanza 2, all the lines can be read as regular iambic pentameter. This has the effect of making the meter unobtrusive, and emphasizes the effects of the sounds of words themselves and of the caesuras. This is particularly effective because, as mentioned earlier, many of the words the speaker uses have the sound of the thing they refer to: "melodist," "unweariéd," "piping," "panting."

"For ever" in this stanza is repeated almost as a mantra: twice in line 24; once in 26; twice in 27. The word "happy" is used similarly often: twice in 21; once in 23; three times in 25. This repetition gives the stanza prior to the last tercet a delirious feel, and the happiness of the scene brings to mind a dancing Snoopy.

The overall effect of sound in this stanza is to intensify the imagery of an idyll-world separated from the world and effects of human passion.

Stanza 4

Imagery

Stanza 4 begins with the speaker returning to a more direct description of the imagery of the urn. He sees a procession with a sacrificial cow. But by the second line of the stanza the speaker's imagination is already taking him to places not portrayed on the urn. The speaker asks, "To what green altar…" do they process? And later, the entire last sestet of the stanza refers to a scene in the speaker's imagination and not to a scene on the urn: what mountain, sea, or river town did this procession of people come from? And wherever that town is, since its people are frozen away from it, there will never be a soul to tell why it is empty.

Sound effects

The initial three lines of the stanza are notably less regular in meter than the end of the preceding stanza. This helps to emphasize the change in tone and focus between the two sections. By the sestet, the speaker has returned to the smooth, rolling flow of regular iambic meter. Two words that strongly reflect their meaning in their sound are "lowing" and "desolate."

Stanza 5

Imagery

The quatrain of stanza 5 again returns to focus more directly on the urn, this time on the form of the urn, not on its figures. It appears that the Attic shape of the urn is described as having a "Fair attitude!" Also notable is that the silent form teases the speaker out of thought as does eternity, and that this effect is characterized as "Cold Pastoral." This "teasing out" relates to Keats' conception of the thought and intellect as being distinct from the soul and from imagination. The silent form draws the speaker from an intellectual processing of life into an imaginative and soul-building state. This revisits the power of the urn mentioned in the first quatrain of the poem to "express more sweetly than our rhyme." "Cold Pastoral" may refer to the timeless, frozen nature of the scene depicted on white marble, and the contrast of that frozen effect to paintings and poems more commonly referred to as "pastoral." Or "Cold Pastoral" may refer to the effect of contemplating eternity.

Lines 47 and 48—"Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe than ours, a friend to man…"—is suggestive of the theme of the final tercet in stanza 3. The final couplet of the poem, "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know," appears to be a direct statement of what Keats also expressed in his letter to Benjamin Bailey on November 22, 1817:

I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination—What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth—whether it existed before or not—for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty—… The Imagination may be compared to Adam's dream—he awoke and found it truth. (887)

Upon considering human ability to instantly evaluate the desirability or beauty of scenarios and situations, once we are in them, and the role of imagination in creating out of thin air the immense variety of artifacts and roles that occupy most of a modern human's attention, the concluding lines of this poem seem accurate.

Sound effects

The most jarring sound effects are the interruptions to regular meter and punctuation caused by "Cold Pastoral!" and "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." Again there are particular words that have a sound that is very suggestive of the word's meaning: "overwrought," "trodden," "generation," and "woe." One effect of the greater obtrusiveness of metrical variations in this stanza is to set the last stanza apart from the stanzas where the speaker is very clearly operating with his imaginative faculty as opposed to his intellect. This last stanza might be considered to be the sunset of the poem, in which case it is returning us to the world of woe from which we came. The most metrically obtrusive phrases are remarks of intellect and analysis, not of imagination, or, to adopt a middle ground, they are remarks of an intellectual imagination as opposed to an imagination focused on emotion and sensuality.

Conclusion

Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn shares with other Romantic poetry—in particular that of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Blake—an emphasis on imagination. And while Keats has mostly succeeded in Ode in producing a poem "great & unobtrusive" without "palpable design upon us," Keats' underlying philosophic and artistic concerns do show through and guide his reader's attention. Thus Ode does in fact teach us or at least make us aware of a manner of appreciating art and of one aspect of the value of art and imagination: While here on earth, "all human passion… leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, a burning forehead, and a parching tongue," and while amidst the woes of our time old age shall waste our generation, contemplation of the silent form of a beautiful urn can tease us out of thought into a world of unheard melodies sweeter than any we can hear—a world where springtime, love, beauty, and youth are constant.

We have also seen how Keats' choice of form and use of diction and meter in Ode are consistent with his axioms of poetry. By using in most cases smooth, flowing diction and regular meter, the character and effect of particular words is heightened and metrical variation can be used inconspicuously to enhance imagery. Keats' use of the poetic medium in Ode is consistent with his goal of creating "a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject."

Works cited

Keats, John. "Ode on a Grecian Urn." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 2. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 2000. 851.

Abrams, M. H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 2000.

Appendix: Keats' artistic and philosophic concerns in his own words

I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination—What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth—whether it existed before or not—for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty—… The Imagination may be compared to Adam's dream—he awoke and found it truth. (887)

—you perhaps at one time thought there was such a thing as Worldly Happiness to be arrived at, at certain periods of time marked out—you have of necessity from your disposition been thus led away—I scarcely remember counting upon any Happiness—I look not for it if it be not in the present hour—nothing startles me beyond the Moment. The setting sun always sets me to rights…he will have the pleasure of trying the resourses of his spirit. (888)

The excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with Beauty & Truth… (889)

…it struck me, what went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature… I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason. (889)

We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us—and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great & unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject…Your letter and its sonnets gave me more pleasure than…the whole of any body's life & opinions. (890)

In Poetry I have a few Axioms, and you will see how far I am from their Centre. 1st I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by Singularity—it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a Remembrance—2nd Its touches of Beauty should never be half way therby making the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural natural too him—shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the Luxury of twilight… (891)

…not one word I ever utter can be taken for granted as an opinion growing out of my identical nature—how can it, when I have no nature? … But even now I am perhaps not speaking from myself; but from some character in whose soul I now live. (895)

I say "Soul making" Soul as distinguished from an Intelligence—There may be intelligences or sparks of the divinity in millions—but they are not Souls till they acquire identities, till each one is personally itself…How then are these sparks which are God to have identity given them—so as ever to possess a bliss peculiar to each ones individual existence? (898)