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Symbols
Sleep- eternal peace, death of day’s troubles
Mole- restless conscience
Literary Devices v2
Repetition:
Keats uses repetition to emphasize speaker's desire to sleep
Alliteration:
Like repetition, Keats uses alliteration to emphasize certain phrases and give poem music quality
Assonance:
Keats uses assonance to give poem musical/lyrical quality and rhythm
Literary Devices
Rhythm & Meter
Metaphors:
Keats uses metaphors to compare sleep to death
Apostrophe/Personification:
Keats commands sleep to come as if it were there/ a real person
Simile:
Simile is used to compare restless conscience to burrowing mole
Traditional:
Non-traditional:
Tone/Diction/Imagery
Tone:
“To Sleep” has a very melancholy/ peaceful tone
reflects desires to sleep and be at peace
Imagery:
Keats uses funeral and sleepy imagery in order to reinforce tone and reflect speakers desire to sleep
Dramatic Elements:
To Sleep
Description/Speaker
Speaker addresses concept of sleep in speech
Narrative and Lyrical Elements:
O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,-
Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.
Summary
Narrative Elements:
Lyrical Elements:
In “To Sleep,” Keats describes an anonymous person’s desire for sleep through a series of extended metaphors.
In first two quatrains, the speaker speaks positively of sleep through death metaphors
After the two quatrains, a non-rhyming couplet is used to signify tone/subject shift
Final quatrain elaborates on couplet
Ties to Romanticism:
Structure
Subject matter
Henry, Harley. "The Romantic Period." Essentials of British and World Literature. Sixth Course ed. Austin: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2008. 706-17. Print
"John Keats: The Poetry Foundation." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org>.
Robinson, Jeffrey C. "'Ode on a Grecian Urn': Hypercanonicity and Pedagogy." Romantic Circles. Ed. Dave Rettenmaier et al. University of Maryland, n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2015. <http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/grecianurn/ contributorsessays/grecianurnrobinson.html>.
To Sleep
Tone/Diction/Imagery-Stanza 5
Literary Devices-Stanza 5
Tone & Diction:
Unlike the warm and happy tone of previous stanzas, Stanza V has a much more distant and frustrated tone
Imagery:
In Stanza V, Keats uses darker and more ominous imagery to reinforce the poem’s sudden shift in tone
Summary-Stanza 4
Allusions:
Keats alludes to ancient Greece in order to emphasize urn’s place in history
Alliteration:
Keats uses alliteration to emphasize certain phrases and increase emotional intensity
Anaphora:
Keats uses anaphora to give poem musical/lyrical quality
Paradox:
In the final lines of Stanza V, Keats uses a paradox to explore the relationship between truth and beauty
Literary Devices
Symbols
Rhythm and Meter
Summary-Stanza 5
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Stanza 5
In Stanza 4, the Speaker suddenly shifts to third illustration
Tone/Diction/Imagery-Stanza 3
Urn- art and beauty
Urn-time
Lovers stuck in time- love
Traditional:
Non-Traditional
Repetition & Anaphora:
In Stanza III, Keats uses copious amounts of repetition in order to reflect the speaker’s intense emotions/desire to be in urn
Alliteration:
Keats uses alliteration to give poem a musical quality
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.
Tone & Diction:
Poem undergoes tone shift from peaceful/romantic to excited and passionate- speaker cannot control desire
Imagery:
In first four lines of stanza, Keats employs same warm, woodland imagery as used in previous stanzas
However, in line 5, imagery shifts in order to reinforce the speakers intense desire and passion
Ties to Romanticism:
Narrative Elements
Literary Devices-Stanza 4
Structure:
Subject Matter
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Stanza 4
Apostrophe/Personification:
Speaker addresses little town directly as if it were real
Rhetorical Question:
Keats uses rhetorical question to signal a new illustration
Alliteration:
Keats uses alliteration to emphasize certain phrases and increase emotional intensity
Summary-Stanza 3:
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.
Tone/Diction/Imagery-Stanza 4
Tone & Diction:
In contrast to the passionate and excited tone of Stanza III, Stanza IV employs a much more subdued and peaceful tone as speaker describes another illustration
Imagery:
Stanza IV is comprised of mostly imagery as the speaker describes, in detail, another illustration to the reader
Lyrical Elements:
Emotions of author are central to “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
Poem's structure has musical/whimsical quality
In Stanza III, the Speaker becomes quite emotional/ passionate while discussing static nature of the urn
Dramatic Elements
Poem is made dramatic by structure
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Stanza 3
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
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.
Literary Devices-Stanza 2
Summary- Stanza 2
Alliteration:
Keats uses repetition to emphasize certain phrases and to create greater emotional intensity
Apostrophe/Personification:
Keats addresses inanimate illustrations as if they are real/human
Assonance/Consonance:
Keats uses assonance/consonance to emphasize certain phrases and give poem a whimsical/musical quality
Paradox:
Uses paradox to explore speaker’s feelings about the urn
Speaker moves on to second illustration
Speaker returns to first illustration
Speaker admires urn’s static nature and is jealous of illustrations
Literary Devices-Stanza 1
Tone/Diction/Imagery-Stanza 2
Allusions:
Allusions serve to reinforce tone and create more woodland imagery
Metaphors/Personification:
Keats personifies urn by comparing it to a historian/bride of quietness
Repetition/Anaphora:
Keats uses anaphora in order to provide emphasis and create rhythm
Alliteration:
Like anaphoras, Keats uses alliteration to emphasize certain words and create rhythm.
Tone & Diction:
Like Stanza I, Stanza II has longing, romantic tone
Imagery:
Vivid, natural imagery used to reinforce light mood
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Stanza 2
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!
Tone/Diction/Imagery- Stanza 1
Tone & Diction
Stanza employs romantic, happy, peaceful tone
Imagery:
Keats uses a lot of nature and forest imagery to reflect tone
Speaker/Context:
Summary- Stanza 1
In "Ode on a Grecian Urn," John Keats explores the relationship between art and beauty through a detailed description of a Greek urn
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Poem is spoken from perspective of an anonymous observer
Stanza 1
In first half of stanza, speaker describes urn
In second half of stanza, speaker describes illustration on urn through rhetorical questions
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts 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
In his early adulthood, Keats attended Guy's Hospital for medical training. He became a wound dresser, but his classmates claimed that he spent all of his time scribbling down rhymes. In 1816, Keats quit his medical career to focus on poetry. Keats published his first volume the following year, but it was unsuccessful. Keats continued to pursue poetry and was more successful after his first failed attempt. His work slowed when his brother contracted tuberculosis and died in 1818. Keats had nursed his brother and it soon became evident that he too had contracted tuberculosis. His tuberculosis progressed until he began hemorrhaging and spewing blood. His doctor's recommended that he go to Italy to see the doctors there. Keats took their advice and traveled to Italy where he died on February 23, 1821 at the age of 25.
For obvious reasons, John Keats was not what you would call optimistic about life. He stuck close to his family that remained alive and strove to avoid falling in love until the last few years of his short life. Keats' works often highlighted both the good and the bad aspects of life. Most previous poets focused on nature, but Keats preferred the human nature. He once stated that "Scenery is fine-but human nature is finer(Keats)." During his transition from an adolescent into an adult, Keats gained a more understanding outlook on the tragedies of his youth. This new understanding allowed him to write poetry that would have previously been difficult for him to write because of his struggles with depression and pessimism.
Early on in his career, Keats would "dress the part" as many of the poets used to do back then. He experimented with growing many different styles of mustaches, and was often seen in an outfit similar to a naval officer's uniform.
John Keats was born October 31, 1795 to his parents, the wealthy owners of a successful horse-rental business. When John was 8 years old, his father was thrown from a horse and succumbed to his wounds. John's mother remarried after only two months to a man whom she later discovered was only after her money. She sent the children to live with their grandparents during the separation process and then joined them after it was final. She left the stable business with her failed husband. John's grandfather soon died and the financial turmoil that inspired so many of Keats' poems began. Keats was well-liked amongst his peers for his kindness and willingness to stand up for what he believed in. This, unfortunately, landed him in many fights. His classmates believed that he would become a great man, but no one foresaw his future career in poetry.
During a time of change, fear, and hopelessness, John Keats focused on poetry. Through his words, he gave hope to the hopeless, bravery to the timid, and inspiration to the discouraged.
The Romantic Period reached its peak from 1798-1832. It was a time period in which people (especially Europeans) became more open minded to intensely emotional forms of art, literature, and understandings of the world. One of these forms of literature was poetry. Romantic poetry focused more on nature, emotions, and the human condition than any previous era.