Ode To Autumn free essay sample

This is the most faultless of Keats’s odes in point of construction. The first stanza gives us the bounty of Autumn, the second describes the occupations of the season, and the last dwells upon its sounds. Indeed, the poem is a complete and concrete picture of Autumn, â€Å"the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness†. Its Sensuousness The bounty of Autumn has been described with all its sensuous appeal. The vines suggesting grapes, the apples, the gourds, the hazels with their sweet kernel, the bees suggesting honey—all these appeal to our senses of taste and smell. The whole landscape is made to appear fresh and scented. There is great concentration in each line of the first stanza. Each line is like the branch of a fruit-tree laden with fruit to the breaking-point. Its Vivid Imagery The second stanza contains some of the most vivid pictures in English poetry. Keats’s pictorial quality is here seen at its best. We will write a custom essay sample on Ode To Autumn or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Autumn is personified and presented to us in the figure of the winnower, â€Å"sitting careless on a granary floor†, the reaper â€Å"on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep†, the gleaner keeping â€Å"steady thy laden head across a brook†, and a spectator watching with patient look a cider-press and the last oozings therefrom. The reaper, the winnower, the gleaner, and the cider-presser symbolise Autumn. These pictures make the poem human and universal because the eternal labours of man are brought before the eyes of the reader. The Poet’s Keen Observation of Nature The third stanza is a collection of the varied sounds of Autumn—the choir of gnats, the bleating of lambs, the singing of crickets, the whistling of red-breasts, and the twittering of swallows. Keats’s interest in small and homely creatures is fully evidenced in these lines. The whole poem demonstrates Keats’s interest in Nature and his keen and minute observation of natural sights and sounds. Keats’s responsiveness and sensitivity to natural phenomena is one of the striking qualities of his poetry. Its Objectivity and its Greek Character The poem is characterised by complete objectivity. The poet keeps himself absolutely out of the picture. Nor docs he express any emotion whether of joy or melancholy. He gives the objects of feeling, not the feeling itself. The poem is written in a calm and serene mood. There is no discontent, no anguish, no bitterness of any kind. There is no philosophy in the poem, no allegory, no inner meaning. We are just brought face to face with â€Å"Nature in all her richness of tint and form†. The poem breathes the spirit of Greek poetry. In fact, it is one of the most Greek compositions by Keats. There is the Greek touch in the personification of Autumn and there is the Greek note in the poet’s impersonal manner of dwelling upon Nature. Felicity of Diction We have here the usual felicity of diction for which Keats is famous. Phrases like â€Å"mellow fruitfulness†, â€Å"maturing sun†, â€Å"hair soft-lifted†, â€Å"barred clouds† which â€Å"bloom the soft-dying day†, â€Å"hilly bourn† are examples of Keats’s happy coinages. Nor is poetic artifice wanting to add beauty to the verse. The alliteration in the following lines is, for instance, noteworthy: To smell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. Several words here contain the same â€Å"z† sound—hazel, shells, flowers, bees, days, cease, cells. The abundance of â€Å"m† sound in these lines is also noteworthy: plump, more, warm, summer, brimni’d clammy. Its Form The rhyme-scheme in this ode is the same (except for a little variation) in all the stanzas each of which consists of 11 lines. Thus it is a â€Å"regular† ode. A Critic’s Comment â€Å"Most satisfying of all the Odes, in thought and expression, is the Ode To Autumn. Most satisfying because, for all the splendour of diction in the others, there are times when the poetic fire dwindles for a moment, whereas in this ode, from its inception to its close, matter and manner are not only superbly blended, but every line carries its noble freight of beauty. The first stanza is a symphony of colour, the second a symphony of movement, the third a symphony of sound. The artist shapes the first and last, and in the midst the man, the thinker, gives us its human significance. Thus is the poem perfected, its sensuous imagery enveloping as it were its vital idea. †