autumn- quote explanations

Cards (5)

  • "close bosom-friend of the maturing sun"
    • sun is personified as its getting older
    • winter is coming
    • sun is no longer high and bright in the sky
    • proposed friendship
  • "to bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees"
    • uses fruit to represent life
    • rich, vivid image of the abundance of autumn
    • verb 'bend' conveys apple trees bending over with the weight of the apples
    • as if everything is so ripe to the point of bursting
  • "thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind"
    • alliteration gives gentle sound
    • reflects gentle beauty of autumn
    • hair being lifted suggests autumn is personified as a woman
    • could perhaps be as he lost his mother when very young- autumn was his maternal figure growing up
  • "where are the songs of spring?"
    • has a preference for autumn
    • spring is forgotten and autumn has its own music
    • consecutive rhetorical questions show Keats scornful attitude of spring
  • "and full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn"
    • lambs born in spring are bigger now
    • reflects passing of time and ripeness of youth just before adulthood
    • onomatopoeic words represent sounds of autumn
    • even though winter is coming, the natural world is still rich with life