John Keats

Biography
 John Keats (1795-1821), English lyric poet,
usually regarded as the archetype of the Romantic
writer. Keats felt that the deepest meaning of life
lay in the apprehension of material beauty,
although his mature poems reveal his fascination
with a world of death and decay.
Keats was born in London on October 31, 1795 as
the son of a livery-stable manager. He was the
oldest of four children, who remained deeply
devoted to each other. After their father died in
1804, Keats's mother remarried but the marriage
was soon broken. She moved with the children,
John and his sister Fanny and brothers George
and Tom, to live with her mother at Edmonton,
near London. She died of tuberculosis in 1810.
 At school Keats read widely. He was educated at
Clarke's School in Enfield, where he began a
translation of the Aeneid. In1811 he was
apprenticed to a surgeon-apothecary. His first
poem, "Lines in Imitation of Spenser", was written
in 1814. In that year he moved to London and
resumed his surgical studies in 1815 as a student
at Guy's hospital. Next year he became a
Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries. Before
devoting himself entirely to poetry, Keats worked
as a dresser and junior house surgeon. In London
he had met the editor of The Examiner, Leigh
Hunt, who introduced him to other young
Romantics, including Shelley. His poem, "O
Solitude", also appeared in The Examiner.
 Keats's first book, Poems, was published in 1817.
It was about this time Keats started to use his
letters as the vehicle of his thoughts of poetry.
"Endymion", Keats's first long poem appeared,
when he was 21. Keats's greatest works were
written in the late 1810s, among them "Lamia",
"The Eve of St. Agnes", the great odes including
"Ode to a Nightingale", Ode To Autumn" and "Ode
on a Grecian Urn". He worked briefly as a
theatrical critic for The Champion.
 Keats spent three months in 1818 attending his brother
Tom, who was seriously ill with tuberculosis. After Tom's
death in December, Keats moved to Hampstead. In the
winter of 1818-19 he worked mainly on "Hyperion".

In 1820 the second volume of Keats poems appeared and

gained critical success. However, Keats was suffering from
tuberculosis and his poems were marked with sadness
partly because he was too poor to marry Fanny Brawne,
the woman he loved.

Declining Shelley's invitation to join him at Pisa, Keats

went to Rome, where he died at the age of 25, on February
23, 1821. Keats told his friend Joseph Severn that he
wanted on his grave just the line, "Here lies one whose
name was written in water."
Ode on a Grecian Urn

by
John Keats
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thou express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunt 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?
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
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!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
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.
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
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.
Ode on a Grecian Urn
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.
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
analysis
 Written in 1819, 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' was the
third of the five 'great odes' of 1819, which are
generally believed to have been written in the
following order - Psyche, Nightingale, Grecian
Urn, Melancholy, and Autumn. Of the five,
Grecian Urn and Melancholy are merely dated
'1819'. Critics have used vague references in
Keats's letters as well as thematic progression to
assign order. ('Ode on Indolence', though written
in March 1819, perhaps before Grecian Urn, is not
considered one of the 'great odes'.)
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
analysis
This ode contains the most discussed two lines in all
of Keats's poetry - '"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," -
that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to
know.' The exact meaning of those lines is
disputed by everyone; no less a critic than TS Eliot
considered them a blight upon an otherwise
beautiful poem. Scholars have been unable to
agree to whom the last thirteen lines of the poem
are addressed. Arguments can be made for any
of the four most obvious possibilities, -poet to
reader, urn to reader, poet to urn, poet to figures
on the urn. The issue is further confused by the
change in quotation marks between the original
manuscript copy of the ode and the 1820
published edition.
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
analysis
In order to like this poem we need to transport
ourselves in time and have disbelieve.
The Urn becomes a bride who hasn’t been
touched.
The Urn has been adopted by silence and
slow time.
The Urn is a historian that describes history.
The Urn has a legend on it. In one way the
Urn is a better historian.
It's a flowery tales (a tale with flower)
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
analysis
The story that the Urn tells is the history of Gods and
humans, and it is on the shape of the Urn.
Beauty is captured (pursuit) on the Urn.
Pipes and tymbrels: the musicians struggle to
escape.
No matters who comes, one can listen to the
melody that one wants to hear. The sound that we
hear is a present sound, but the one that the
musician are playing, is for the spirit, without
sound.
A dittie is like a song, but it has no sound.
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
analysis
 Consolation: the man has the tree forever. In the world of
the Urn, the trees are there for ever, and they never die.
Even if he is very close to his love, he cannot fulfill his goal,
but he doesn’t grief because she cannot fade (she is also
there forever). Forever with your love. How tragic to be so
near to fulfillment and yet not been able to get it.
 Eternal: melodies, beauty, youth and love.
the melodies are forever new, the musician never get tire
of playing. There is no limitation through time nor culture.
The melodies will always be updated.
The fun and beauty is there to be enjoyed for every
youngster.
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
analysis
Passion and the love of two young lovers.
A picture of two young lovers coming to sacrifice,
like a young cow to the altar.
They never go back because they are captured in
the Urn.
What little town…
Looking at the people makes him think of the
town, the town is empty because they are all at the
sacrifice.
The silence of the Urn takes us out to eternity. For
the way the author writes we see that he is a
dreamer.
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
analysis
Cold Pastoral: a cold pastoral describe life in the country side.
It’s not people of flesh and bones. It is an Urn and does not
transmits any living feelings. We only see it in the Urn. A
sign of eternity is that the Urn has passed through
generations and when our generation will not be here, the
Urn will.
The Urn will be in other peoples woe (suffering).
The Urn is a permanent friend who diminish pain and
suffering for the next generations.
Why? Because, when you are transported to another time,
pain goes away, at least temporarily. It gets you out of your
reality, that is why the Urn is called a friend. The Urn helps
kill the pain and suffering of people throughout generation
to pass.
 Ode on a Grecian Urn
analysis
 The Ode was inspired by the poet’s contemplating
the Elgin Marbles. Acquired by the British Museum
in 1816, the Marbles are a group of relief
sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens that
depict various scenes from Greek mythology, just
which Urn if indeed it ever existed- Keats used as
his model is not known.
Thank you very much