1/25/2011 9:53:00 PM

Natalie Chehrazi Ode to a Grecian Urn

Reading Notes: 1/24/11
An urn holds ashes Trying to make a connection with the urn but similar to the nightingale, he is unable to make a full connection. youth vs. old age-urn is coming from a distant past[remains youthful] Unheard melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time Frozen in time, he should not grieve, because her beauty will never fade Urn as a historian Pictures frozen in time. Happy that the love of the boy and the girl will last forever One of a group of villagers leading a heifer to be sacrificed--where they are going and from where they have come. Imagines their little town, empty of all its citizens Beauty is truth, truth beauty.--what is encapsulated on the urn circular arguments-has no end[we don't know what comes] the raw truth is generally not beautiful quotes: make it look as though that came from someone may come from a text Keats was looking through the urn may be speaking wise and has more knowledge-therefore seen beauty and truth Urn represents a state of perfection from the distance past Not always the case the truth = beauty what is the message of the Ode?

In-Class Notes: 1/25/11

Stanza 1 ravish- to take away ones virginity, sexy, and attractive thou is the urn un-ravished: hasn't been affected by time similar to nightingale: the poetry exists within the urn urn expressing a story: urn is the historian expresses more sweetly than our rhyme

disconnection of time Man pursing a woman on the Urn story playing out on the urn but its frozen, still Keats is examining the poetic affect of the picture Stanza 2 Urn represents only one side of the story[visual] but creates an affect of something more because of the way the people are frozen in time picture makes the viewer expand for himself the possibility of the beauty of the urn: beyond the visual "She cannot fade"- her beauty never fades They are trapped in time: she will stay beautiful but they will not be able to touch or experience each other: "thou hast not thy bliss" locked in separation: not able to touch tear in the surface of the urn in the terms of its beauty never going to be able to unite with each other Stanza 3 happy- represents the denial doesn't believe that people that are moving toward one another are feeling some separation anxiety although it seems happy they are forever apart temporary better? because he can feel? Stanza 4 the town is forever alone-they are trapped on the urn--they are dead within the sacrifice we see the urns immortality as a representation of the mass destruction that time causes. represents what we don't have access to and the time that has past Urn represents the distance between Keats and the past Stanza 5 pastoral-sacred and innocent Cold pastoral-oxymoron