John Keats, Romantic Poet

On his death bed, in a letter to his brother, John Keats wrote “I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death” (Keats, 1818).

Keats only sold roughly 200 copies of his poetry books throughout his lifetime (Motion, 2010), and fellow poets even attributed his death to the large number of negative reviews his works received: “Tis’ strange the mind, that very fiery particle / Should let itself be snuffed out by an article” (Byron, 1819).

However, as Keats predicted, positive reviews about his poems began to surface years after his death: “[To Autumn] is the most serenely flawless poem in our language” (Ridley & Clarendon, 1933).

A book called The Liberal Movement in English Literature, published by W. J. Courthope in 1885, concentrated on Romantic writers and poets, such as Keats, Shelley, and Byron. Courthope himself said that “I might, indeed, have called the series ‘The Romantic Movement in English Literature’” (Courthope, 1885, p. viii).

Of this group of poets, John Keats is, arguably, one of the most prominent second-generation Romantic poets (Day, 2012; Inglis, 1969).

What is Romantic Poetry?

Romantic poetry often seeks refuge from the changes to society, life, and the environment in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Everest, 2002; Inglis, 1969). Romantic poets will escape from the “harsh and unforgiving” world and into imaginary realms of any sort: in nature, the imagination, their past, or in themselves (Everest, 2002, p. 1).

Individualism was one of the leading aspects of Romanticism—a focus on the self as a separate being from the society within which one lived (Inglis, 1969, p. 14), and Keats’ poetry often embodied the speaker finding a realm of “unchanging perfection and ceaseless pleasure” internally, away from the outside world (Everest, 2002, p. 1).

Poetry in general uses literary techniques and devices to emphasise meaning and create new meanings. Figurative language is a common literary technique wherein an author connects unrelated ideas and objects to create a new, implied meaning or feeling, and uses them to increase the emotional impact of these connections (Merriam-Webster, n.d.).

This article will first provide a close reading of two of Keats’ poems, ‘Ode on a Grecian urn’ and ‘To autumn’, before discussing their use of figurative language.

Ode to a Grecian Urn

Keats explores the themes of mortality, art, beauty, truth, and history in ‘Ode on a Grecian urn’ by writing an ode about a Grecian urn. ‘Ode on a Grecian urn’ was written by Keats in 1819 and is a complex poem that follows a speaker looking at an urn, painted with depictions of rural life of Ancient Greece and, in particular, two lovers who play music and dance.

These lovers are both frozen in time on the urn, yet seem to be perpetually moving around the urn. Although the poem was originally criticised by critics, it is now considered one of the English language’s greatest odes (Sheats, 2001).

The urn seemingly provokes the speaker, causing more questions rather than providing any answers, and the speaker shifts through moods in reaction to these questions. The speaker is captivated by the urn’s ability to capture a moment in time that is so wholly complete and full, yet is a frozen moment from the past.

Although the urn does not talk, it manages to convey information to the speaker, and makes the speaker question his own mortality, the impact of history, and the connection between art, beauty, and truth. Ultimately, through the urn, the speaker comes to the realisation that truth and beauty are the same.

Rhetorical and Figurative Language

‘Ode on a Grecian urn’ uses the rhetorical and poetic figurative language device of ekphrasis to emphasise the tangible reality of the urn and its lively vividness. Ekphrasis is Greek for ‘description’ and, in literature, is a dramatic, vivid, and imaginative description of a work of art (Poetry Foundation, n.d.).

It is used to make a reader envision a work of art, whether real or imagined, as though it were physically in front of them (Munsterberg, 2009). Ekphrasis itself was originally used simply to describe art in vivid reality, but eventually transformed to include the reaction of a speaker or viewer of the art as part of the description of that object (Langbaum, 1957).

In ‘Ode on a Grecian urn’, the speaker’s experience and their reaction to the vivid description of the urn is an important aspect of the poem (Munsterberg, 2009). In the poem, the speaker reflects on the realities of what the urn is projecting in its art, whilst simultaneously acknowledging that these realities are only his imagination:

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; there, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual eat, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of not tone.
(Keats, n.d., para. 2).

Ekphrasis

These lines highlight the use of ekphrasis, wherein the art is vividly described, but the speaker also acknowledges the imagined—the aspect of the flute that seems so real and tangible, but its melodies are silent.

By narrating a piece of art and allowing the speaker to reflect upon it, poets manage to amplify the meaning of the work of art and expanding the meaning and implications that art can have on the speaker (Poetry Foundation, n.d.). This use of ekphrasis has expanded the meaning of the urn and created a deeper connection that toes the line between reality and imagined.

To Autumn

Keats explores the themes of beauty, death, and embracing the present in his poem ‘To autumn’. The poem was developed by Keats as a reaction to a walk he took along the River Itchen, near Winchester; Keats wrote to his friend, John Hamilton Reynolds,

“Somehow a stubble plain looks warm – in the same way that some pictures look warm – this struck me so much in my Sunday’s walk that I composed upon it” (Keats, 2008, p. 184).

The poem itself praises the beauty of autumn and rejoices in the transitional nature of the season through the use of strong, sensual imagery that highlights its fleeting beauty. It utilises three stanzas to demonstrate the life cycle of the season: from its plentiful beginning, to its laborious middle, to its degenerating end; these three stanzas also shift through three senses of touch, sight, and sound respectfully (Sperry, 1973, p. 337).

Autumn represents the beauty of life whilst acknowledges the cycle of life and death that all beings within nature follow. It alludes to the importance of embracing the presence and not fearing for the future.

There is a link between death and the reality of renewal—if human lives follow the cycle of the seasons, then after death they will be renewed another time (Bate, 1963, p. 583).

Personification

‘To autumn’ uses the figurative language device of personification to allow the speaker and, in turn, readers to connect deeply to the season and draw parallels between themselves and autumn. Personification is when a thing or an abstraction is given human characteristics or represented as a person (Abrams & Harpham, 2013).

As readers acknowledge the undeniable reality that the abstract—in this example, autumn—is, in reality, personified by an author, then the force and intensity of the personification is increased between the reality and the implied (Goslee, 1982, p. 80).

The poem personifies autumn and uses descriptions of what autumn might see, hear, and feel to increase the connection between autumn and the reader. Autumn has “hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind” and is “sitting careless on a granary floor . . .drowsed with the fume of poppies” (Keats, n.d., para. 2).

The reader is forced by this use of personification to view autumn as not an abstract season, but as someone with hair, who can sit carelessly, and who can be drowsed by the scents around them. This strong use of figurative language allows Keats to heighten the experience of a reader and forces a deeper layer of implied meaning—autumn is now directly alluded to being human, just like the reader, and is someone who experiences the five senses and feels the reality of life and death.

In the first stanza, Keats alludes that not only abstract concepts like seasons are personified, but even celestial bodies are: “close bosom-friend of the maturing sun” (Keats, n.d., para. 1). The sun and autumn are characterised with the very human belief of friends.

Additionally, the sun is “maturing”, which hints at a life and death cycle of the sun—with its death being winter. Keats’ strong use of the figurative device of personification in ‘To autumn’ elevates the poem and provides deeper implied meanings that would be less effective without this technique.

Symbolism

Keats utilised the figurative language device of symbolism in his poems ‘Ode on a Grecian urn’ and ‘To autumn’ to unite his imagination and his reality (Boulger, 1961). Boulger (1961) explained that Keats often searched for symbols in his writing to create permanent yet meaningful connections between “the transient anguish of life and the world of his imagination” (p. 245).

Symbolism is not just to use a literal symbol, but can be to imply symbolic meaning. Poets create sensual representations, both emotionally or physically, by expressing something unsaid, intangible, unacknowledged, or invisible (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). In ‘Ode to a Grecian urn’, Keats uses symbolism to project two experiences: the imagined and the real (Boulger, 1961).

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy son, nor ever can those trees be bare;
. . . Ah, happy, happy boughs! That cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu
(Keats, n.d., para. 2-3).

These lines demonstrate how the tree is being used as a symbol of both permanence and transience. On the urn, the trees are frozen in their season, and their leaves shall never shed. However, the speaker and, in turn, the reader, both know that the time of the world is marked by seasonality.

The tree symbolises Keats’ hopes for the tree and his own future, wherein he can stop time to enjoy the present without the reality of time and death. In ‘To autumn’, the sun appears in every stanza, both explicitly and implicitly. The sun is used by Keats to symbolise life and death, as it gives and takes away from autumn.

In the poem, autumn works with the sun “to load and bless” trees with fruit, but the sun is too strong and fills “all fruit with ripeness to the core”. The sun symbolises the cycle of life and death as “summer has o’er-brimm’d” to the point of autumn beginning to decay.

Symbolism in ‘Ode on a Grecian urn’ and ‘To autumn’ allows Keats to present layers of implied meaning to his works that create deeper connections between his reality and his imagination.

Conclusion

This article discussed firstly introduced John Keats, Romanticism, and the concept of figurative language. It then demonstrated a close reading on ‘Ode on a Grecian urn’ and connected the poem to the figurative language device of ekphrasis.

The same was demonstrated on Keats’ poem ‘To autumn’, which was linked to the device of personification. Finally, the essay explored the device of symbolism in both poems. This essay ultimately discussed the importance of figurative language in creating deeper meanings in Keats’ poems, both literal and implied.

works cited

Abrams, M. H., & Harpham, G. (2013). A glossary of literary terms. Cengage Learning.

Bate, W. J. (1963). John Keats. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Boulger, J. D. (1961). Keats’ symbolism. ELH, 28(3), pp. 244-259. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2872068

Byron, L. (1819). Don Juan. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43833/don-juan-canto-11

Courthope, W. J. (1885). The liberal movement in English literature. John Murray.

Day, A. (2012). Romanticism. Taylor & Francis Group.

Everest, K. (2002). John Keats. Northcote House Publishers.

Goslee, N. M. (1982). Phidian lore: Sculpture and personification in Keats’s odes. Studies in Romanticism, 21(1), pp. 73-85. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25600336

Inglis, F. (1969). Keats. Arco. https://archive.org/details/keats00ingl

Keats, J. (n.d.). Ode on a Grecian urn. Poets.org. https://poets.org/poem/ode-grecian-urn

Keats, J. (n.d.). To autumn. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44484/to-autumn

Keats, J. (October 14, 1818). Letter to George and Georgiana Keats. In English History. https://englishhistory.net/keats/letters/

Keats, J. (2008). The life and letters of John Keats. Read Books.

Langbaum, R. (1957). The poetry of experience: The dramatic monologue in modern literary tradition. W. W. Norton.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Figure of speech. In Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved May 9, 2021. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/figure%20of%20speech

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Symbolism. In Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved May 9, 2021. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/symbolism

Motion, A. (January 23, 2010). An introduction to the poetry of John Keats. Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/23/john-keats-andrew-motion

Munsterberg, M. Ekphrasis. Writing about Art. https://writingaboutart.org/pages/ekphrasis.html

Poetry Foundation. (n.d.). Glossary of poetic terms: ekphrasis. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/ekphrasis

Ridley, M., & Clarendon, R. (1933). Keats’ craftmanship: A study in poetic development. University of Nebraska Press.

Sheats, P. (2001). Keats and the ode. In The Cambridge companion to John Keats. Cambridge University Press.

Sperry, S. (1973). Keats the poet. Princeton University Press.