Ode on a Grecian Urn

• Theme of Mortality

  • Poem as a complex meditation on mortality.
  • Death preoccupies the speaker who responds by both celebrating and dreading the fleeting nature of life.
  • The urn acts as a contradiction. Its scenes show vibrant humanity and a sense of eternal life as they are frozen in time.
  • The pictures seem to come alive for the speaker through the lovers, musicians, and images of nature.
  • Sense of anxiety as the speaker realises that to stop time, both life and death stop with it.
  • Mortality is presented as and end but also a distinct part of life.
  • By the end the urn becomes "cold" showing no comfort to the speaker's contemplation of mortality.
• Theme of Art. Beauty, and Truth

  • Close relationship between art, beauty and truth.
  • For the speaker, it is through beauty that humankind comes closest to truth, and through art can human being attain this beauty.
  • "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" demonstrates the beauty and truth are one and the same. Art's role is to create this beauty and truth.
  • The speaker's one way conversation represents his attempt to make sense of these intuitions, feeling this connection intuitively.
  • The poem cannot show the precise relationship between art, beauty, and truth but the language works hard to be beautiful and to show that beauty is something valuable and essential to humankind.
  • Poem offers no clear answer but suggests that the three are co-dependent, essential to one another.
  • Scenes of the urn become not just pictures of human life, but also abstract representations of beauty.
• Theme of History and the Imagination

  • Speaker makes powerful effort to bring history to life.
  • Poem functions as a one sided conversation between the speaker and Ancient Greece, represented by the urn.
  • Poem suggests that imagination is key to understanding and sympathising with what has come before.
  • Craftsmanship of the urn allowed for a small part of history to survive.
  • Speaker emphasises the immense length of time in which the urn has existed but also its inanimate quality.
  • Poem acknowledges that no generation can ever have a full account of the world as it was before.
  • History and the imagination help humankind to relate to its past.
• Symbol of Music

  • Music acts as a symbol of human activity and creativity that occurs throughout the poem.
  • Music is a paradox because the urn is a silent, inanimate object. The music depicted by it can never be heard. The piper's song is locked in eternity.
  • The speaker takes this as a representation of the potential of art and its central role in creating a meaningful world.
  • Speaker becomes preoccupied by thoughts about mortality.
  • Discussion of music contrasts the presence of silence that begins in the first line of the poem and continues throughout.
  • The urn cannot answer the questions posed by the speaker, remaining quiet in a way that is at odds with the function of music.
• Symbol of Nature

  • Scenes on the urn are "pastoral." They are specifically situated within nature.
  • The natural world ties the speaker to the ancient Greek world they observe on the urn's surface. Though they are very different times, the earth's natural environment is largely the same.
  • The trees never being able to shed their leaves is a symbol of both eternity and transience, they are frozen in a particular season.
  • Seasonality is a marker of time, and representative of the ever-changing nature of life itself.
  • Spring is associated with new life and overflow of natural growth, with connotations of love and lust.
  • The natural world is a cyclical space where death is essential for the creation of new life.
  • The frozen natural imagery suggests that while death and time are absent from the urn, so is the potential for life.
• "Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, // Thou foster-child of silence and slow time."

  • Apostrophe of "thou" talking directly to the urn. Personification of urn.
  • "unravish'd" conveys an image of innocence (virgin) reflecting the Romantic view of sex as corrupting.
  • "still" has a double meaning, as lasting or inanimate.
  • Sibilance of "silence and slow" creates a calming, peaceful, and hushed sound.
  • Contrast between the urn's peaceful quality with undertones of violence.
• "What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?"

  • Last lines of the first stanza. Keats increases the pace of the poem with repeated questions.
  • Rhetorical questions emphasise that the poet doesn't have the answers and cannot say if the pictures on the urn are accurate representations of life and mortality.
  • The speaker searches for meaning in the urn, and perhaps the reader has to search for it.
  • "What" is repeated seven times in the stanza which highlights this.
  • "men or gods" juxtaposes mortality with immortality.
• "Not to the sensual ear, but more endear'd, // Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone."

  • Keats describes the scene of the urn in which musicians are depicted but their music is left "unheard."
  • Inhumanness of the urn suggested by its lack of senses.
  • Assonance of "ear" and "endear'd," "spirit ditties," and "no tone" emphasises the lyrical tone of the poem showing that it is art, just like the urn.
  • "spirit ditties" are folk songs.
• "Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, // Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve."

  • Epizeuxis of "never" emphasises that the "lover" on the urn cannot move, but also reminds the reader of things that are impossible in their own lives.
  • "Thou" is an archaic form of pronoun, creating a sense of importance, history, and drama.
• "She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, // For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!"

  • Stanza ends on a paradox.
  • The "Lover" cannot have his "goal" but he will always love her and she "cannot fade" implying that she will never die while remaining "fair."
  • The exclamation may suggest a sense of triumph.
• "Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;"

  • The season of "spring" may connote an early stage of life.
  • Might reflect the speaker's fear of no longer being young and free, as the quote suggests that the tree on the urn will not age and lose its leaves.
• "That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, // A burning forehead, and a parching tongue."

  • Shift in tone which highlights on the pain of unfulfilled love. Creates an image of disease, such as being lovesick, presenting the harmful effects of love.
  • "cloy'd" reflects the idea of pleasing someone to the point of disgust.
  • Alliteration of "heart high" creates an almost breathless tone, like that of heartbreak and "sorrow."
  • "burning" and "parching" create unpleasant connotations of illness and discomfort.
  • "burning" may act as an image of hell.
• "To what green altar, O mysterious priest, // Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies..."

  • This stanza consists of the words "who," "what" and "why" creating a shift from the more personal previous stanzas. Volta here as the tone is more distant.
  • Image of a sacrifice or religious ceremony that reflect the practices of Ancient Greece.
  • A "heifer" is a young female cow, here it is dressed in ceremonial attire with its posture towards the sky, waiting to be sacrificed.
  • "lowing at the skies" implies it is mooing which is emphasised by assonance.
• "Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?"

  • "emptied" like the Grecian urn itself.
  • "folk" stands for all the people pictured in the town and their mortality.
  • "pious morn" acts as a transferred epithet connoting a holy and prayerful atmosphere.
  • Rhetorical question suggests that the speaker is questioning the silence of the urn, creating negative associations to emptiness.
  • Mirrors the emotional climbdown of the poem to its anxious and ambiguous conclusion. Sad tone.
• "Cold Pastoral! // When old age shall this generation waste..."

  • Materiality returns to the urn through "Cold Pastoral!" Further emphasised earlier in the stanza by "silent" and "marble."
  • "cold" has multiple meanings, inanimate and unemotional.
  • Exclamation reflects an accusatory tone as the urn no longer offers a glimpse of humanity and offers no answers to the mysteries of life.
  • "old age" presents the constant fear of ageing and death.
• "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all // Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

  • Radical moment as the urn speaks, it is no longer a one-sided conversation or monologue as it offers one consistent lesson, a mysterious epigram. The urn is no longer passive.
  • Chiasmus.
  • This quote may be an engraving on the urn itself, or a sudden clarity of the speaker's own thoughts.
  • Analogy of life, as mystery allows life to be viewed as beautiful and we must feel comfortable in not knowing its secrets.