Poetry Response #7

Merrell Pressley

Mrs. Jernigan

English Lit AP

8 March 2011

Poetry Response #7

            “Ode to a Grecian Urn” is written by the romantic poet John Keats. Obviously, this poem is an ode, which is defined as a lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion. Keats dedicates this particular poem to a Grecian urn. He describes the paintings on the urn throughout the poem, and the pictures on the urn represent years of Grecian history.

            The entire poem culminates in the romantic lines of the very last stanza in which Keats writes, “’Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’” These last two lines reveal the commonly held beliefs of the romanticist: everything in nature holds truth, everything is beautiful. The romantic time period was full of elaborative language, flowery images, and the worship of everything beautiful, for beauty’s sake. The Grecian urn’s history, whether a good memory or mournful war, is beautiful, according to Keats.

            Keats also expresses the idea that while everything is beautiful, sometimes words cannot begin to express the full meaning they are supposed to illicit. For example, In the first stanza, he writes, “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.” In these lines, he tells the reader that the beautiful inscriptions of history on the urn tell the story of life better than anyone could. The art on the urn is timeless. It will never disappear, and it will always remain the same, as is shown when he writes, “She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss.” It is more capable of expressing the beauty and importance of history than even Keats is.

            From these themes, it is fitting that Keats should entitle his poem “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” because he exalts and praises its function throughout the poem. The asthetically pleasing urn represents history and the value and importance than can be found in the memories of ancestors.