John Keats

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know
– John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn.

Pre-reading exercises:
John Keats was an English poet who is now regarded as being one of the greatest lyric poets of his time.
He was born in London on October 31, 1795 and in his short lifetime had 54 poems published in various
magazines and in three volumes of poetry. Recognition of his achievements as one of the leading poets of his
time only came after his death in Rome on February 23, 1821.
From the age of 8, Keats was educated at an academy just north of London in Enfield. As a schoolboy he
won an essay prize and he developed a great love for literature. He was particularly attracted to ancient myths
and spent his free time translating a large part of the Aeneid. He also studied classic French and Latin texts.
John Keats finished his academic education at the age of 16, when he began to study medicine as an
apprentice to a surgeon.
After reading “The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spencer “(1552-1599), Keats had become passionate about
the language of poetry, and in 1814 he had began composing his own poetry. Keats used poetry to express his
feelings and to explore his own profound sense of beauty in nature, which he had been aware of from early
childhood. He wrote using many different poetic forms, including the sonnet, the ode and epic verse.
His first long poem, “To George Felton Mathew” (1815), was based on an Elizabethan style of verse
writing, using heroic couplets. In 1816 Keats was qualified to practice surgery, but gave up his medical career
to pursue poetry.
His first volume of poems was published in 1817 and he was greatly disappointed when it did not sell
well. Keats continued to write in various poetic formats. He began working on the lengthy “Endymion” when
he was challenged by the poet Shelley to write some epic verses.
“ Endymion” was published in 1818 and in the same year Keats wrote his first Shakespearian sonnet,
“When I Have Fears the I May Cease To Be”.
In 1818 Keats met and fell in love with Fanny Brawne, an eighteen-year-old who lived next door to him
in Hampstead. His most passionate love poems were written about his feelings for her. The couple became
engaged but were unable to marry because of his lack of money.
In 1919 Keats was at his most creative, writing five odes which are now considered to be amongst the
greatest achievements of any poet from the Romantic era. Critics at the time did not appreciate the poetic
language of Keats and some of them reviewed his work in a very negative way. They seemed to despise him
for being a common Londoner from a humble background who was aiming for success as a Romantic poet.
Although his poetry was appreciated by some of the leading intellectuals of the time, Keats never achieved
financial success or fame as a living poet. He wrote very little after his second volume of poems was
published in 1820.
In the course of his short life, the poetic language and technical ability of John Keats were not generally
known or acknowledged outside his close circle of friends and admirers. By 1820 Keats was in very poor
health. He was suffering with severe symptoms of tuberculosis, so he left England for the milder winter
climate of Italy. He was dead within a few months of his arrival in Rome. 

1) What do you know about J. Keats and his creative activity?

2) What kind of education did J. Keats get? What did inspire him on writing the odes?
3) What can you say about his attitude to ancient myths?
4) What poetic forms / genres were his favorites?
5) Give definition of the ode. What was peculiar about the odes written by John Keats?
6) Keats requested that his epitaph read: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” What
does this reveal about how Keats felt about his life and work?
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
Many antique Greek vases show gods, goddesses, heroes, and mortals entangled in adventures.
Traditionally, urns have been used as containers or for burial. The urn Keats describes is painted around with
a series of mythological scenes, but no one knows exactly which urn Keats had in mind when he wrote this
ode. Probably it is an imaginative combination of several vases he had seen in engravings and in the British
Museum.

I.

THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
II.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
III.
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
IV
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.
V.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
«Beauty is truth, truth beauty,»- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Vocabulary Practice:
1. Explain in English the meaning of the following words, make sure that you know their correct
pronunciation: Grecian urn, sylvan, Tempe, Arcady, loth, a timbrel, a ditty, a heifer, a flank, a garland, a
citadel, Attic, overwrought, Pastoral
2. Translate the following words and expressions from English into Ukrainian. Learn them by heart: To
fringe, a foster child, to haunt, a deity, a dale, woe, a mortal, pursuit, to escape, to endear, weary, to
parch, to sacrifice, to tease, eternity, to cloy, pious;
3. Find 5 synonyms and 2 antonyms to the following words: bare, to fade, to grieve, desolate;

Translation exercises:

1. unravish’d bride of quietness;

2. What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
 3. Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
4. She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
5. … nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
6. … For ever piping songs for ever new;
7. That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
8. To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
9. What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
10. with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought
11. … the trodden weed
12. Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

Comprehension questions:

1. What or who is referred to with the help of ‘thou/thy’?

2. In the first stanza the poet addresses the urn in three different ways. What are they? What did the poet
intend to emphasize by using these phrases?
3. Why does the poet think that the urn can express ‘A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme’?
4. What is described in the second and third stanza? Is there any special term to call this type of the
picture?
5. The poet says that we cannot use the ‘sensual ear’ to hear ‘unheard melodies’. What should we use
instead?
6. The poet says that ‘unheard melodies’ are ‘sweeter’ because they are ‘piped to the spirit’. How do you
understand this concept?
7. Who is referred to as ‘Fair youth’ in the ode? What is he doing? What can’t he do?
8. What is ‘Bold lover’ doing in the scene?
9. Why are the boughs called ‘happy’?
10. The songs are called ‘forever new’. Why?
11. In the forth stanza the poet describes the second scene depicted on the urn. What is it?
12. What is your understanding of the following lines:
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
13. What does the poet mean when he says: “When old age shall this generation waste”?
14. In what way is the urn addressed to in the final lines? Why?
15. What idea is expressed in the last two lines:
«Beauty is truth, truth beauty,» - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
What is your personal attitude to this idea?

Stylistic analysis:

1. Identify all metaphors used in the poem towards the Urn.

2. Find examples of metonymy and personification within the text.
3. As he looks at the scene depicted on the urn, the poet feels uncertainty and excitement. How is his
heightened emotional state conveyed?
4. Repetition is used extensively in the third stanza. What words are repeated? What does the repetition
of these words highlight?