Ode on a Grecian Urn

Ode on a Grecian Urn

What's an Ode?

Traditionally, the ode is lengthy (as lyrics go), serious in subject matter, elevated in its diction and style, and often elaborate in its stanzaic structure. There were two classical prototypes, one Greek, the other Roman. The first was established by Pindar, a Greek poet, who modeled his odes on the choral songs of Greek drama.

Our Urn...

Analysis of Ode on a Grecian Urn

After being able to actually make an urn, and observing in detail what the story in it said, I have been able to draw plenty connclusion about this Ode. First of all, the power in the images that Keats uses is crucial, specially in his synasthesias, such as, "Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:", or "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter". The purpose of these synaesthesias being the portrayal of the "oneness of life", and how separate senses are really all united. Emotions are stronger than the apparent separation there is between the senses.

Another very important aspect of "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is the contrast between the dynamism and stillness of life in the Urn. The poetical I is oberving how the micro-cosmos in the Urn is moving, moving at the beat of the pipes that are playing in the background, at the beat of the seasons (Spring). He scrutinizes on the fact that this world will be forever young, and for ever living. But at the same there is the fact, the paradox of the dynamicity in the story, the liveliness in it, against the stillness and death. 

Furthermore, the poetical I is very ambivalent in his tone. "More happy love! more happy, happy love! 
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,
Forever panting, and forever young;"  These lines are in the 3rd stanza, where he describes everything as joyfull, as the perfect undying world. But later, two stanzas later, " Cold Pastoral!" , here the prior happy descriptions are contradicted by harsher ones. This ambivalence in the tone of the poem suggests maybe, resent towards the urn, and what the urn represents, youth and purity against the aging of mortal human life.

Deeper analysis of Ode on a Grecian Urn

2nd Stanza

Shallowness of reality vs. Deepness of the ideal. "Unheard melodies" (oximoron) are "sweeter" than heard ones, imagination goes beyond actual, rational thought. The word "spirit" gives a celestial quality to the music coming from the pipes, that would never be heard, but imagined in the fantasy above. Later he describes the melody, as the "youth" that will never leave, going back to the stillness, to the eternal, undying, unseasoned youth. This is then contrastes, maybe contradicted with a bit of irony, when the speaker says "Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss", suggesting that given by the circumstance of being forever still, no real action will take place, this love will never be fulfilled: "Though winning near the goal", but then he goes back to reality where he tells the Bold lover that the kiss will never really happen: "yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade...For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!" Tension between the desire of leaving the world of reality and staying in the world of fantasy. Reality drags him down, but the upthrust of fantasy is what creates the tension between these two opposing forces. 

Pyramid Activity

In brief, the pyramid activity consisted of discussing what elememts of the poem had striked us the most, and writing these down on a post-it, and after everybody in the group had done it, put them in a hierarchical order: a pyramid. This is our pyramid...

At the bottom of the pyramid the more specific ideas were posted, and at the top, the general ones. These were fedback to class and discussed.

After carrying out the pyramid activity a few relfections and conslusions can be drawn on the dyanmics of the activity. Firstly, the formation of generalizations is crucial for the understanding of any topic, but specially a complex and crowded poem as Ode on a Grecian Urn. It is very important to back up and build towards these generalizations through the outline and comprehension of the specifics that compose them, if not generalizations are hollow and useless ideas. 

A group dynamic made the activity even more enrichening, mainly because the fact of giving and idea a concrete, wordly form makes it a more productive and useful tool for the analysis of any topic, maybe if this group activity wouldn't have been done, then these notions wouldn't have gotten to light.

 Leadership skills were also put to practice in this group activity, since decisions had to be made over which ideas were central and which were peripheral. These decisions should be democratically made, but a leader, sooner or later, will be needed. In this acticity I think Ana de Lezica was able to play that role, and be the leader of the team, and make that final decision. 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci and Art

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats

John William Waterhouse (April 6, 1849 - February 10, 1917)

John William Waterhouse was a painter of classical, historical and literary pieces. His father was a painter in Rome, city where he was born on 1849. In the 1850's his family went back to England, and before entering the Royal Academy school in 1870 he assisted his father in the studio. His first pieces of work were of classical themes, and were exgibited at the Royal Academy,the Society of British Arts and the Dudley Gallery. He also made several trips to Italy and painted genre scenes.

The Poem and Waterhouse's painting

La Belle Dame Sans Merci is overflowing with natural symbols, or symbols that create a link to nature. Waterhouse, in his piece, is loyal to Keats strong bonds with these mentioned characteristics, and does so through the wild way in which plants and other natural elements entangle with the knight and the beautiful lady, in an almost hypnotic environment. 

The painting is centred in the gaze between the woman and the knight, a gaze of love, of interest, of engagement. This connection is disguised by the contrast in the physical appearance of both; while the lady seems to be an extension her natural surrounding, the knight is more of an outsider, someone who does not belong, his armour if the most obvious suggestion of this idea. Nevertheless, something that is not shown in the painting, is the knight's easy handling with the surroundings,

"

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;" The knight knows how to handle the natural elements around him, in spite of not seeming to be a part of it, as the lady is.

Rhythm and Meter

Traditional Ballad form

'I saw the new moon late yestreen

      Wi' the auld moon in her arm; 

    And if we gang to sea, master,  

      I fear we'll come to harm.'

Keats´ Ballad form


O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

  Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has wither’d from the lake,


  And no birds sing









The main difference between the traditional ballad form (above) and Keats´ form (below) is mainly in the last line of each stanza. The former ends with a fully expressive line, whilst in the latter there is a cut in the last line, hence making it much slower and laying an emphasis on it. The first four stanzas end with an "unfinished" line, and they all have a message in common, which is related to death, to the end of life: "And the harvest's done", "And no birds sing". The main purpose of leaving the last line unfinished is to give it a different cadency, a slower, more paused cadency, therefore changing the mood of the ballad to a more melancholic one. It was coincidence, no mistake.


Art inspired in La Belle Dame Sans Merci








Painting by Henry Meynell Rheam, 1901.





When contrasting and comparing Waterhouse's and Meynell Rheam's versions of Keat's La Belle Dame Sans Merci there is a key factor to be taken into account, and that is that they are set in a different moment of the story, of the scene. Waterhouse gives life to the very moment of the knight and the lady's engagement, while Rheam sets a picture before the knight knows of the lady's existence. The mood and atmosphere of Rheam's is different to Waterhouse's, here the colours used are dark and dull, the season (late autumn) is very well pictured, provided by the background of leafless trees and misty air. Death is the key protagonist in Rheam, ghosts fading away in the fog, along with dead trees in the background and the half-dead knight laying on the ground. The lady, as some kind of supernatural being emerges from the somber woods to find the knight, defenseless, he is completely armed except for his head, leaving him unprotected. The look in the lady's face suggests that she wants to take advantage of the knight. On the other hand, Waterhouse's scene is completely different. Nature and its superabundance are crucial. The engagement between both, the knight and the lady, is the primary feature, accompanied by the use of vivid colours to portray a different mood.