John Keats-Ode To A Nightingale/Ode On A Grecian Urn

The first aspect of interest is Keats’ development of the cruel reality of the world that surrounds the speakers. In both poems they seem to be fixated on their own woe and despair. In “Ode on a Grecian Urn” the speaker begins by asking many questions directly towards an aged urn. He asks it, “What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? / What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? / Wha

t pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?” (8-10) He sees a beautiful scene that features happy young men, maidens, revelers, and minstrels underneath fully leaved trees. He is awed by the scene depicted on the urn and wants to know “what leaf-fring’d legend haunts about [its] shape” (5). The descriptive imagery contained in his questions allows the reader to visualize some of the details of the picture, such as the man chasing a maiden. He says to him “never canst thou kiss, / …yet, do not grieve; / She cannot fade” (17-19). The other side of the urn, described in the fourth stanza, depicts a procession of priests and villagers on their way to make a sacrifice. To this the speaker asks, “What little town by river or sea shore, / … / Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?” (35-37) By addressing the town from which the priests and villagers came, something that is not actually physically pictured anywhere; the speaker reaches his deepest analysis of the urn. “…Thy streets for evermore / Will silent be; and not a soul… / can e’er return.” (38-40) The town is so empty and still that he describes it as “desolate” (40). His emphasis on the lonely, sorrowful, and miserable aspects of this imaginary place gives the reader some idea of how full of loneliness, sorrow, and misery the speaker himself is. He seems to relate more to this nonexistent empty village than to the image that he can actually see in front of him. He foreshadows his feelings of pain and despair in the real world prior to this in the third stanza, where he uses the literary tactic of repetition. The word ‘happy’ appears several times describing numerous elements of the scene: “…happy, happy boughs!” (21), “…happy melodist” (23), “More happy love! more happy, happy love!” (25). This word is also repeated in “Ode to a Nightingale” when the speaker says to the bird, “…not through the envy of thy happy lot, / But being too happy in thine happiness” (5-6). The fact that Keats’ has a lack of varying and more accurate words has a purpose. By stressing the word he shows that the speaker has difficulty relating to the joyful and lighthearted, and therefore cannot find more expressive words or the desire to elaborate more fully. He feels the intense pain of living in a cruel and unforgiving world. Keats continues with this idea of reality in his other poem.

Looking at the themes and symbols within “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and “Ode to a Nightingale” can result in the idea that even though the world is so cruel according to the speakers, they

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