Ode On A Grecian Urn (1819)

John Keats

[Premise]
Ode On A Grecian Urn, by John Keats, was published in 1819 and written during a time in
which there was a lot of archeological work being carried out within Egyptian and Roman
relics and those, for the majority, were found and then transferred to Britain; now, despite
this, it’s the critical consensus that Keats wasn’t actively trying to depict an urn being carried
out to Britain but he was certainly surrounded by a number of private collectors actively
engaging with museums at the time. In Keats’s case it wasn’t the British Museum but he
might have ended up somewhere in London where he has witnessed himself urns, pottery
and old artifacts and - depending on the usage, we had, respectively, different names for
different types of pottery. There has been a lot of speculation as to what might have sparked
in him this interest, but this is ultimately a form of utopian thinking as Keats himself wasn’t
very knowledgeable of Greek Mythology and might have just tagged along due to the
common interest for these types of artifacts at the time. Therefore, we could say that he was
inspired by the excitement at the time in regards to how these artifacts and relics were dug
up - which was very prominent during the 18th and 19th century as those were exciting times
for the notion of the “past”, which is not to be confused with the notion of the antiquarian as
Keats himself was very conscious of the living present moment and this is shown by the
meaningful connections he personally makes between the art he witnesses and the
experience he has accumulated in his life. There’s a relationship at stake here between the
present moment and the paintings and urns within a diachronic view of life and Keats finds
himself intrigued about the possible interconnections and differences between life in its
ongoing state and art - art that despite having been created and depicted ages ago,
becomes immortal and immune to the passing of time. The notion of immortality of art has
already been explained by Pietro Bembo, italian writer and humanist, in his dialogue “Le
Prose della Volgar Lingua” of 1525 - in which he discusses the fate of the Italian language
within two opposite parties: the promoters of the influence of Tuscany and the Florentine
dialect and its oppositors. Pietro Bembo, in this socio political debate, positions himself in the
middle by affirming that language, in its written form, has to be preserved and therefore
placed in an “a-temporal” dimension in order to thrive - a space that is uncorrupted and
unaffected by the conditions and premises of Modernity. Similarly to language in its written
form, be it texts, manuscripts and books, art is a fixed imprint of the influence of humans in
history and it survives the passage of time. So, going back to the initial relationship at stake
between art and life itself; Keats loved to make connections between the two and affirmed
that whereas life was a recollection of lived and experienced moment, art was was immortal
and not only that, life is also limited as it eventually ends for each one of us whereas art is
eternalized.

Now, moving on to Keats as a literary figure, he was very keen on reading classical work due
to “class anxiety” as he was brought up in lower class and was apprenticed to become a
surgeon, which was a craft at the time and, therefore, a low status job in comparison to a job
involving the sciences or a field of study. Nowadays the figure of the surgeon obviously
changed. Ketas, after only studying for a year, leaves the hospital he was working in to fully
pursue a career involving his passion for poetry. Despite having a burning passion and
desire for becoming a great poet, what differentiated him from the other poets of the time
was his educational upbringing - in fact other poets were taught Latin and Greek as they
were brought up in upper classes and the aristocracy and this served as an advantage when
having to write certain forms or creating high canonical literature; so Keats was actively
trying to keep up with them given that he wasn’t granted the same education growing up.
Keats’s poetry has lasted the passing of time but it wasn’t particularly appreciated at his time
and it received a lot of negative reviews, in fact, it was attested that at the time of his death
due to Tuberculosis, at age 25 in Rome, he was at a point in his life where had produced a
lot of poetry and, when he specifically published Hyperia, he received reviews so negative
that those had a lethal effects on his health and Byron himself attested it personally. Despite
this, other poets such as Shelley appreciated his work and Keats himself actually had a very
boyish output and attitude in his poetry and approached it with his medical training, which
had a significant influence on it. In the first verse of Hyperia, Keats affirms that beauty is
therapeutic and this prompted his decision to give up his profession as a surgeon to pursue
poetry as he believed that he could’ve helped more people with his poetry - this is because
great poetry has a therapeutic effect as we stated previously and it served as refuge for men
at the time, in the same breath the bucolic and natural setting of Wordsworth’s narrative
served the same purpose. Truth is beauty and Beauty is truth and those are essential in
one’s life. Going back to the importance and significance of art in its state, Byron for example
writes in Ottava Rima and literary artifices such as metonymy to create an experience that
fully engages with the senses and that would’ve created a piece of art that would have lasted
in time and had a transformative effect with the experience of the viewer. Opera was implied
as a first attempt to recreate tragedy. Keats’s Ode finds itself in between longer poems such
as Don Juan and shorter sonnets and it is a meditative and reflective piece of poetry. The
subject matter of the narration can also be found in the Ode to A Nightingale where we find
the Springboard of a series of life and death situations and interactions formally addressed
by the urn. In the narration we find terms such as unravish’d - someone that hasn’t had sex
yet - and foster child of silence and slow time, slow time as in unaffected by the passing of
time, which moves by its own rhythm. There are also a lot of terms of endearment such as
bride and so on but what catches the eye is the “Sylvan Historian” which represents the Urn
as an entity that narrates the story as an historian, therefore the story of the woods, of
communities and of nature altogether; mortals and deities ultimately interacting. As we said
earlier, this setting reminds us of the bucolic, pastoral and ideal landscapes of the
Wordsworthian cycle, not to mention Theocritus in the Greek literary scene. This bucolic
scenery and space serves as a refuge and place of innate calmness in which humans can
escape the madness and chaos of city life. The poem has a peculiarity in the narrator’s
approach, as he enters the scene completely clueless and unprepared. History is formally
included in the arts and imagination here is a paramount aspect of poetry, paramount as in
supreme.

[Description]
Ode On A Grecian Urn was written by the influential English poet John Keats in 1819. It is a
mysterious and complex, yet, disarmingly simple poem in the way it is set up as we find a
spectator, a speaker, observing a Grecian urn depicting scenes of rural and rustic life in
ancient Greece. What’s so fascinating about this urn is that it depicts the scenery in its
fullness of life within fixed images that are forever frozen in time; which ultimately excites
and confuses the speaker. The speaker’s former response to the urn is encoded in a series
of reactions and shifts of moods which ultimately provokes more questions than answers.
The ending of the poem is subject to personal and varied interpretation but what’s certain is
that the poem evokes a statement that we already mentioned beforehand, which is “Beauty
is truth and Truth is beauty”, therefore those are coexisting principles that are consequently
viewed as united. This poem was written during a burst of creativity in Keats and while not
appreciated at the time, it remains one of the most celebrated poems in English literature.

[Paraphrase] - Stanza 1
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?

In the first stanza, the speaker directly addresses the urn as a pure - given that unravish’d
indicates someone that hasn’t had sex yet and is, therefore, uncorrupted and “pure” - partner
of quietness: the urn is in a position where it cannot communicate with the speaker; and in
addition it regards it as an adopted, foster child of silence and slow time. Silence because,
as we mentioned earlier, it cannot communicate with the speaker and slow time because it is
representative of a scenery that is forever encapsulated in a dimension where time is frozen
and still. The speaker then regards the urn as a Sylvan historian, therefore an historian of
rural scenes that shows a well suited proficiency in depicting poetry, in comparison to the
poets of his time, or even in comparison to language as a whole, further accentuating the
contrast between urn as art and the limited assets of manhood and life. The speaker then
wonders what kind of legend or story is animating the images he’s observing and if they’re
depicting mortals or Gods and in what part of Greece they’re located. The speaker also
wonders about the male characters and the deities in the scenery, not to mention the
reluctant looking women. Do these scenes portray a chase, therefore something they’re
actively seeking or an escape from something? The fixed images are not helpful in this
scenario. Then, the speaker notices the pipes and instruments and questions what kind of
hilarious and delirious revelry they might be representing

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

The speaker starts the second stanza by saying that music is beautiful and he praises it but
praises even more what cannot be heard, therefore what is depicted on the urn, given that is
like a blank canvas in the prospect of individual and personal interpretation. Given that, he
implores the urn to continue playing its pipes, instruments, and not for sensory pleasure or
the pleasure of the ear but more so to pay a tribute to silence, which is the key feature of the
interaction between the urn and the speaker. The speaker then focuses on a young lad, a
piper that is sitting under a tree; he cannot leave his position and therefore cannot ever stop
piping the instrument but at the same time the trees cannot ever shed their leaves as they’re
both frozen on the urn. The speaker then focuses on two lovers who are nearly kissing but
their lips never meet, which is unfortunate as it was always meant to be this way, from the
moment the artist depicted them on the urn. The speaker reassures them, because in the
same way they’re frozen in their unsuccessful attempt to kiss, they’re also bound to be in
each other’s life for eternity and the woman will preserve her beauty

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

In the third stanza, the speaker takes his attention toward the images of the trees and
realizes that their boughs, their branches, will always be happy as they will never lose their
leaves and they will never have to say goodbye to Spring. He then returns to the young piper
he observed previously and realizes that he will always experience happiness and bliss as
he’s left doing what he loves the most, which is playing new songs for eternity, on the urn,
and this realization leaves the speaker happy and filled with thoughts of love. The
protagonists of the scenery on the urn will always have happiness to look forward to and will
forever enjoy being young and out of breath due to the chase. The stanza ends with a final
realization by the speaker, that affirms that all passions that characterize the living
experience of humankind in life are removed from the urn and thankfully so, given that those
ever changing emotions cause heartache, lovesick fevers and thirst

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 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

In the fourth stanza, the speaker is analyzing what seems to be a ceremonial progression, a
sacrifice we would say. He notices a mysterious and shadowy figure of a priest that is
leading a cow, a cow that is formally moaning at the sky, in a position where the cow is
facing it from the lower land; the cow is dressed with ceremonial silks and flower garlands.
This image is significant because it makes the speaker wonder where this ceremony is
originating from, therefore which town by either the river, coast or mountain has fallen quiet
and been emptied out during this religiously significant morning. Then the speaker
acknowledges the town in question whose streets are emptied out for eternity and silent
forever; what is even more frightening is that there is nobody to actually explain why the city
is empty, and art that is isolated in time can never truly return to its original meaning, it’s up
to everyone that encounters the painting to give it their personal and subjective view of it

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”

In the fifth and last stanza, the speaker takes a few steps to have a more zoomed out look at
the urn and he focuses on nothing but its shape and attitude, so how the urn is facing him.
He recalls the populations of men and women depicted on the urn, in addition to the natural
landscape. The speaker realizes that the urn has the power of offering men a relief from
thought - in the same way eternity does - but that is unnatural or inhuman and for that
reason the speaker calls it cold. The coldness and the eternal quality of the urn is highlighted
even more by the speaker when he realizes that his current generation will die, but the urn
will stick around to be observed and analyzed according to the circumstances and the
understanding of a different generation, which further alludes to the elusive element of
humankind and its generations, nothing lasts forever and everything is ever changing, in and
out of existence but the urn remains still. What matters is that the urn will always tell me that
beauty is truth and truth is beauty; this is that is possible to know and all that actually needs
to be known