To Autumn

Autumn

The sovereignity of your acid titian new tinge,

In recent auburn dye of verdant decay:

Deadly aroma of arable rejuvenation 

In my attempt to create some Katsian lines regarding Autumn, some similarities came up with his production. Both of us speak of the overflowing fertility of autumn, "To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees". Another similarity could be the reference to the new colours of autumn, he speaks of "hazel shells", whilst I talk about the titian new tinge, or recent auburn dye. 

To Autumn

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,	5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,	10
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
2. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;	15
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;	20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
3. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,	25
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;	30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

1)

The main difference between "To Autumn" and the rest of the studied poems by Keats is that the transportation to a world away from reality, is missing. This poems, unlike the rest, stays in the reality of nature, it is more of an observation rather than an imagination. Keats accepts, embraces and admires Autumn for what she is, there is no suggestion of emptiness or hollowness in the real word, this is the difference from the rest of his poems.

2)

The first stanza is full of imagery suggesting warmth, and even heat: "maturing sun", "warm", "Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells". These are obvious suggestions of warmth, being the medium of all the fertility, ripeness, maturity of the begininng of autumn. Throughout the 2nd and 3rd stanzas there are subbtler references to the warmth of autumn, seen in the description of autumn and her way of being, personified as lazy, or maybe tired for all the work done in the previous stanza. She still has things half done, unfinished: "half-reap’d furrow". She is comfortable, warm. In the third stanza, there is imagery that also makes reference to warmth, " And touch the stubble plains with  rosy hue". It is as if a shadow of colours, roses, is casted upon the fields. 

3)

Time is the thread of the poem. Keats, throughout "To Autumn", insists on the idea of a progress, of a cycle. Beginnings and endings and beginnings, this is the essence of the poem. The language used is the medium that Keats uses to express this idea, the present continous (-ing's): "conspiting, budding, winnowing, etc". The structure of the poem is also representing the passing of time, of chronology. The poem starting with the end of summer and beginning of autumn, from the harvest to the end of the harvest. Also talking about Spring, where everything grows, and starts.  

Ode on Melancholy

Ode on Melancholy

After the first read, the phrase that stuck in my mind was "Sudden from the heaven like a weeping cloud". This comparison of it to a natural phenomenon makes it more mundane. Melancholy as something that has to be embraced, a feeling, a circumstance that must be dealt with.

Exploring Images with Images

Stanza 1



Proserpine and the ruby grape. "By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine", this image, referring to the Greek myth of Proserpine who ate the grape and sentenced herself to eternity in the underworld; is trying to tell  the reader that he should not sentence himself to death when melancholy falls.



In the first stanza the speaker is trying to warn the reader of what he should not do when melancholy comes, it shouldn't be linked to death, to autoflagellation; as religion does.



"Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud". Melancholy comes, as a natural phenomenon, as a paradoxical phenomenon as well, since rain means "bad weather" but it really gives life to nature.

This paradox is later seen in the oximoron "April shroud", April referring the start of Spring (life), and shroud referring to death. These little hints of contradiction are throughout the whole poem, but in the last stanza this is clarified.





"Emprison her soft hand", This image is again talking about how Melancholy should be embraced, her "soft hand" should be "emprisoned". Again a contradicting term "emprison" and "soft" are two terms oppose each other, yet that is exactly what the speaker wants to transmit: opposing feelings that go together, that are connected.



"

Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;" This long, extended, image is the essence of the third stanza and the poem. It basically suggests that those who truly unveil melancholy, those who truly see her as for what she really is, are the ones who are capable of bursting Joy's grape. It makes me think that the juice of Joy's grape is melancholy, that only when you've bursted the grape, is when you will be able to taste melancholy's joy. Again, a contradicting idea. The whole poem is an extended paradox, overwrought with oximorons and synaesthetic images.

Why all the references to catholicism?

The Catholic religion implies suffering (flagelation), passion, sorrow in the stories. Temptation is a big player in catholic religion as well. "Sovran shrine", "Make not your rosary of yew-berries", these lines have a connection to religion, where melancholic passion is shrined. The speaker is trying to warn the reader, the addressee, that melancholy shouldnt be linked/combined to death, it should be embraced.

Ode on Melancholy

NO, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,	5
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.	10
FIRST STANZA: What we should NOT do when Melancholy falls. We should not fall into self-indulgence, into the common-drawn connection with Death.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,	15
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globèd peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. SECOND STANZA: What we should DO when Melancholy falls. It should be embraced, as something as natural as a “weeping cloud”. Your sorrow should be “glut…on a morning rose”.	20
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight	25
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung. THIRD STANZA: Paradox between the joy of melancholy and the suffering that it comes with.	30

		Extra Questions on Ode on Melancholy 1) What first strikes me when thinking about "Ode on Melancholy" in the light of an unhealthy and decadent poem, I think about putting the narrator's "advice" into practice, and what would happen. If everyone would embrace melancholy as something daily and normal, then results could be, maybe, falling into a CONSTANT melancholy, in a state of never-ending sadness, turning into an unhealthy pratice. This, would exponentially take the human state of mind to a steady decline, given by the fact that melancholy and all that it implies would simply be considered as something as normal that comes as "Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud". This would eventually be destructive and twisted, since melancholy would be embraced as normally as any common, regular situation. A last point that could suggest that the poem is unhealthy maybe the fact that Keats links pain (melancholy) with joy, in the last stanza; turning these two into one (typical Keats), could be considered as controversial and bold, in my opinion, its simply a suggestion, a proposal, something new to be experienced. 2) 3) Strong imagery is used throughout the poem, abundant with metaphors that have to do with tasting, or eating, feeding, glutting. These often refer to temptation, to things that appear to be nice but in fact are dangerous: "Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine", or "By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;". This helps illustrate the idea that melancholy must be fed, it must me endured and even nourished by beautiful things, such as rose or eyes of your lover.  4)

John Keats

SECTION 1

Timeline of Keats' Life

John Keats Born:Oct 31, 1795

Born in London, England

Brother Dies:1802

Edward, his brother dies.

Starts School:1803

Begins his studies at a small school in Enfield, England.

Father Dies: Apr 16, 1804

Thomas Keats dies of a fractured skull. John's mother, remarries later the same year.

Mother Disappears:1805

Abandons the family for three and a half years, leaving the children with their grandmother. 

Mother Returns:1809

Keats' mother returns to the family, sick with tuberculosis and rheumatism. Keats nurses her.

Mother Dies:Mar, 1810

Frances Jennings Keats dies of tuberculosis. 

Leaves School:1811

Abbey pulls Keats from his studies at Enfield and apprentices him to a surgeon in nearby Edmonton. 

Starts Medical School:1815

After four years as an apprentice, Keats begins his medical studies at Guy's Hospital in London. 

Becomes Serious About Poetry:Oct, 1816

Keats meets the poet Leigh Hunt, who becomes an important influence on his work.

Leaves Medicine:Dec, 1816

Keats decides to abandon his medical career for good so that he can focus on his poetry. 

First Poems Published:Mar 3, 1817

Keats' first poetry collection, a volume simply entitled Poems, is published.

Finishes Endymion:Nov 28, 1818

Keats completes Endymion, his first major long poem. The poem begins with the immortal line, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever"

Brother Dies:Dec 1, 1818

Keats' brother Thomas dies of tuberculosis at the age of 19.

Meets Fanny Brawne:1819

After his brother's death, Keats moves in with his friend Charles Brown in the Hampstead neighborhood of London. There, he meets and soon falls in love with his neighbor, Fanny Brawne.

Tuberculosis Appears:Feb 3, 1820

Has a lung hemorrhage, the first serious symptom of the tuberculosis that will eventually take his life. 

Final Poems Published:Jul, 1820

Keats' final volume of poetry, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems, is published.

Sails for Italy:Sep 17, 1820

Keats' doctor informs him that his lungs will not survive an English winter. Keats sails to Italy with his friend, the painter Joseph Severn.

John Keats dies:23 February 1821

John Keats dies of tuberculosis at the age of 25 in Rome. He is buried in the Protestant cemetery. Percy Bysshe Shelley writes the poem Adonais as an elegy for him.

Fannny Brawne

Fanny Brawne was the main source of inspiration for Keats’s work. He met her when he moved in with his friend Charles Brown in the Hampstead neighborhood of London, after his brother’s death. There he fell blindly in love with Fanny, a 16 year old girl who he found intellectually and culturally attractive. He fell in love with her ways of speaking and conversing, with her passion for books and knowledge. Their love was later printed in the letters that they sent to each other. These were the most productive years for Keats, where he wrote his best poems, including his famous Odes.

Letter to Fanny Brawne-Love Declaration

“The morning is the only proper time for me to write to a beautiful girl whom I love so much…”

“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days—three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”

Letter to Charles Brown

Charles Brown was a close friend of Keats’s. They met in the late summer of 1817, Keats was 21 and Brown 30. Brown took care of Keats when he developed tuberculosis after February 1820; he handled his affairs, paying his bills, writing his letters, etc.

“Write to George as soon as you receive this, and tell him how I am, as far as you can guess; - and also a note to my sister - who walks about my imagination like a ghost - she is so like Tom. I can scarcely bid you good bye even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow.”

SECTION 2

Romanticism

The Romantic period was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in Europe in the end of the 1700’s, peaking during 1800 and 1850, and finally ending in the late 1800’s. It was based on the idea that the Age of Enlightenment was too aristocratic with its norms and structures. It was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the rationalization of nature.

In English Literature, the Romantic period in Britain lasted roughly from the 1770’s to the mid 1800’s.

The painting “Liberty Leading the People” by Eugene Delacroix, that commemorates the July Revolution of 1830, is a symbol of the French and their emergence as a nation led by the people against absolutism. Along with the new art and literature movements of Romanticism, new political ideologies were spreading throughout Europe. The French Revolution, as a historical event, was the turning point of these new ideas. The painting above shows how the people were willing to revolt against the old norms and structures of the Enlightenment period.

Key Ideas for Understanding Romanticism

1. Imagination and emotion are more important than reason and formal rules; imagination is a gateway to transcendent experience and truth.

2. Along the same lines, intuition and a reliance on “natural” feelings as a guide to conduct are valued over controlled, rationality.

3. Romantic literature tends to emphasize a love of nature, a respect for primitivism, and a valuing of the common, "natural" man; Romantics idealize country life and believe that many of the ills of society are a result of urbanization.

a. Nature for the Romantics becomes a means for divine revelation (Wordsworth)

 b. It is also a metaphor for the creative process—(the river in “Kubla Khan).

4. Romantics were interested in the Medieval past, the supernatural, the mystical, the “gothic,” and the exotic.

5. Romantics were attracted to rebellion and revolution, especially concerned with human rights, individualism, freedom from oppression.

6. There was emphasis on introspection, psychology, melancholy, and sadness. The art often dealt with death, transience and mankind’s feelings about these things. The artist was an extremely individualistic creator whose creative spirit was more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures.

a. The Byronic hero

b. Emphasis on the individual and subjectivity.

William Blake-Romanticist writer and artist

Blake’s etched frontispiece for his book America: a Prophecy (1793).

Reconstruction of William Blakes's painting.

Lord Byron and John Keats

Lord Byron came from a high-class aristocratic family, he was an accomplished and celebrated poet while John Keats was a middle-class poet, who struggled and suffered to the harsh critics of the time. Keats was even told that Poetry was a talent worth of noblemen, not “Cockney” poets. This arose great envy from Keats towards his counterpart, and he even said in a letter to his brother George, “You speak of Lord Byron and me - There is this great difference between us.
He describes what he sees - I describe what I imagine - Mine is the hardest task.”

Section 3

What is an Ode in Poetry?

An Ode is a type of lyrical stanza, and its purpose is to praise something or someone that captured the poet’s attention, something specific such as, for example “Ode to Autumn”. Odes usually carry plenty of emotion towards that that the poet is praising.  

Ode to a Nightingale 1819, May

"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains"

Ode on a Grecian Urn 1819, May

"Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,"

Ode to Psyche 1819, Spring

"O GODDESS! Hear these tuneless numbers, wrung"

Ode to Autumn 19, Sept, 1819

"SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,"

Ode on Melancholy 1819, Spring

"NO, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist"

Ode on Indolence Spring 1819

"One morn before me were three figures seen,"

Ode - (Bards of Passion and of Mirth) 1820

"BARDS of Passion and of Mirth,”

Ode to Fancy

"Ever let the Fancy roam,"

Ode to Apollo

"In thy western halls of gold”

Lines on the Mermaid Tavern

“Souls of Poets dead and gone”

Robin Hood-To a Friend

“No! those days are gone away,”

Themes in Keats Poetry

Inevitability of Death: Keats had strong belief about death, he believed that death happened throughout one's life, maybe every day there were instances of death.
This themes is recurrent in his poetry, in poems such as "Ode on Indolence" or "Ode on Melancholy".

The Contemplation of Beauty: Keats believed that the conteplation of death was a way of delaying the inevitability of it. Poems that tackle this theme could be, "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode to a Nightingale".

Keats also strongly deals with mundane conflicts, these can be seen throughout all of his Odes:

transient sensation or passion / enduring art

dream or vision / reality

joy / melancholy

the ideal / the real

mortal / immortal

life / death

separation / connection

being immersed in passion / desiring to escape passion

Synaesthetic Imagery

A a Synaethesia is a literary device used by writers to express any idea, emotion, character, through the means of appealing to more than sense. The nature of syneathetic imagery, specially in Keats' work, is the combination of senses in order to represent the unity of them, the wholeness of life, in all of its forms.

From Isabella:

And TASTE the MUSIC of that VISION pale. (stanza XLIX)

This synaesthesia appeals to three senses: taste, hearing and sight. This mix, cocktail, of senses makes the line juicier, more sensual, provocative.

Ballad

Originally from the French chanson balladée, which means “dancing songs”, a ballad is a narrative form of verse, often set to music. Ballads were popular in Britain from the late middle ages until the 19^th century. The purpose of a ballad is told as a song, as a tale, therefore they have a specific form, a pattern of couplets followed by alternate lines, resulting in a rhythmic piece, appropriate for dancing. 

"A typical ballad is a plot-driven song, with one or more characters hurriedly unfurling events leading to a dramatic conclusion. At best, a ballad does not tell the reader what’s happening, but rather shows the reader what’s happening, describing each crucial moment in the trail of events. To convey that sense of emotional urgency, the ballad is often constructed in quatrain stanzas, each line containing as few as three or four stresses and rhyming either the second and fourth lines, or all alternating lines."
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5769#sthash.8yRhUELc.dpuf

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

AUDIO