ODE ON A GRECIAN URN

John Keats
 Something to think about...
"The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all
disagreables evaporate from their being in close relationship with Beauty
and Truth. John Keats

The poem is about an object of art and the poem itself is art.

The poem is based on a series of paradoxes:

the discrepancy between the urn with its frozen images and the dynamic
life portrayed on the urn.

the human and changeable versus the immortal and permanent.

participation versus observation.

life versus art.

Something to think about...
Look at the type of poem this is why is it
significant in terms of Romanticism?
Think about why the poem is about a Grecian Urn
what is its significance?
Stanza 1
Stanza I begins slowly, asks questions arising from thought and raises
abstract concepts such as time and art
The urn exists in the real world, which is mutable or subject to time
and change, yet it and the life it presents are unchanging; hence, the
bride is "unravish'd" and as a "foster" child, the urn is touched by
"slow time," not the time of the real world. The figures carved on the
urn are not subject to time, though the urn may be changed or
affected over slow time.
Is it paradoxical that the urn, which is silent, tells tales "more sweetly
than our rhyme"?
With lines 8-10, the poet is caught up in the excited, rapid activities
depicted on the urn and moves from observer to participant in the
life on the urn, in the sense that he is emotionally involved.
Paradoxically, turbulant dynamic passion is convincingly portrayed
on cold, motionless stone
Stanza 1 - Techniques
Begins by directly addressing the urn thou still
unravished bride of quietness
Natural imagery sylvan historian, flowery tale, leaf-
fringed
Series of rhetorical questions at the end of the stanza
Tone sense of reverence as the poet is observing a
work of art but the object is also communicating from
the past.
Note the paradoxes that are established in this stanza.
Stanza II
The first four lines contrast the ideal (in art, love,
and nature) and the real; which does Keats prefer
at this point?
What is the paradox of unheard pipes?
The second half of the stanza indicates an
unchanging scene of the lovers depicted on the urn
what is the poets perception of this scene?
Stanza III
This stanza recapitulates ideas from the preceding
two stanzas and re-introduces some figures: the
trees which can't shed leaves, the musician, and the
lover.
Keats portrays the ideal life on the urn as one
without disappointment and suffering.
The urn-depicted passion may be human, but it is
also "all breathing passion far above" because it is
unchanging.
Stanza III - Techniques
Find examples of irony what is being suggested
by this irony?
What is the effect of the repetition?
What is the tone of this stanza?
Explore the meaning of the last two lines of this
stanza.
Stanza IV
Focus is on another image on the urn a religious
ceremony of sacrifice.
This stanza shows the ability of art to stir the
imagination, so that the viewer sees more than is
portrayed.
The poet imagines the village from which the
people on the urn came. In this stanza, the poet
begins to withdraw from his emotional participation
in and identification with life on the urn.
Stanza IV - Techniques
Look at the paradoxes in the stanza why are they
used?
Imagery in the last section of the poem is of
lifelessness/death why?
The idea of pain and joy is depicted in this stanza
find examples and explore them.
Stanza V
The poet is returning to being an observer of the
urn rather than a participant in the images
presented on it.
Stanza V - Techniques
Look at the imagery coldness and silence why is
it used?
Closely examine the lines:
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought/As doth
eternity: Cold Pastoral
Think about the paradoxes used.
The last lines
There has been much controversy about the last two
lines of the poem, mostly from the point of
punctuation.
Look at the three versions:
Beauty is Truth,--Truth Beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.--That is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
The last lines
As you can see, there is much ambiguity.
Who is speaking, the urn or the poet, or the
persona?
Who is being addressed in these last lines?
What is meant by these last lines that beauty is
painful or a more philosophical statement:
on the relation of the ideal to the actual?
Is the urn rejected at the end?

Is art--can art ever be--a substitute for real life?

Some more to think about...
The last lines...the last word?
The Romantic notion of beauty is an intense feeling and this
is, for the Romantics the basis of all interpretation.
Intense feeling is an undeniable fact
The fact that the urn is cold is symbolic of the need for
feeling.
It is important to be affected by beauty even if it is short
lived.
The beauty of the urn speaks directly to our imaginations
and shows the power of the human mind to appreciate
beauty.