Both the Romantics and Victorians addressed the idea of preserving the perfect moment and Keats' "Ode to a Grecian Urn" is one such perfect moment captured in art. In the opening stanza, Keats addresses the urn, personifying it as:

"Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness"

This personification prepares us for the impossibility of fulfilment. The word "still" highlights the anticipation of ultimately being ravished and embodies two concepts of both time and motion. The urn exists in the real world; it is physically subject to time and change and has survived many years, yet the images it depicts are unchanging:

"Thou foster-child of silence and slow time"

The pictures on the urn are affected only by "slow time", they will live forever and remain the same. Keats genuinely appreciates the story the urn is imparting and though it is silent, he believes its images can tell the tale more effectively than his poem is able to:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'-and that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Is emptied of this folk this pious morn?"

The urn has drawn him momentarily out of the real world so his thoughts can roam in an ideal one with neither imperfection nor change. The urn has been an escape, however temporary, from the pains and problems life presents. Though all this seems to be undermined by calling the timeless images a "Cold Pastoral!" Perhaps he realises that the process of living and dying, of knowing all of life's sorrows and hence being able to fully appreciate its joys is more eternal and beautiful than immortality and frozen emotion. The heat and excitement of life and passion is lost on the cold urn Even though it will "remain, in the midst of other woe" when we will long be dead. We are left, therefore, appreciating the eternity of the urn and the perpetual joy and anticipation in which it is suspended. However, we also begin to doubt whether this is entirely satisfactory and I feel Keats has explored his ideas and eventually decided that life with all its emotion, both pleasure and pain are more valuable than simply anticipation.

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Is he, in the final couplet, saying perhaps that pain is in itself beautiful for what it teaches us and this is why we need more than just anticipation?

Some topics in this essay:
Grecian Urn, Cold Pastoral, TS Eliot, Urn Keats, Marbles Urn, Romantics Victorians, real world, Ode Grecian, ode grecian, ode grecian urn, life emotion, stanza keats, anticipation ultimately, keats feel, urn stanza, perfect moment, happy love, final couplet,