Ode On A Grecian Urn

Ode On a Grecian Urn research papers point out that an encounter with the sublime is the image at the core of Keats "Ode On a Grecian Urn." Ode On a Grecian Urn research papers tell of the speaker as he ruminates on the "cold pastoral" of a Grecian urn, upon which an ancient artist has inscribed scenes that depict many facets of human life. In regarding this seemingly timeless artifact, the speaker meditates on the persistence of the creative process and the act of art-making, and the way that art can serve to freeze a moment of time for all eternity. From his contemplation of the creative process, Keats literature research papers show how he formulates the most famous encapsulation of the Romantic notion of imagination: "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter." The last lines of the poem - spoken directly by the urn - assert that the only truly important aspect of life is the achievement of lasting beauty through art. Taken together, these lines present a pure crystallization of the aesthetic system of the Romantic poets.

Keat's Style

There are numerous elements of Keats' style that bear discussion; his deft use of symmetry, his unique use of adjectives, or his preoccupation with mortality, but Perhaps the most apparent stylistic theme running through the body of Keats' work is his utilization of "ekphrasis," which can be described as the "detailed literary description of any object, real or imaginary". Keats' most widely-read piece "Ode on a Grecian Urn," which consists of Keats' ruminations regarding the legacy of a Grecian artifact, possesses just this type of characteristic. Critic Paul Sheets describes "Ode On a Grecian Urn," as poem that is, at times, both "imaginatively engaging" yet "inhuman," much like the object it proposes to illuminate. And this become indicative of a majority of Keats' work: We have an author, haunted by thoughts of mortality, and preoccupied with the contemplation of history, interacting both the objects of his world and his own psyche in an engaging, yet distant style.

• In Ode On a Grecian Urn, the speaker ruminates on the "cold pastoral" of a Grecian urn, upon which an ancient artist has inscribed scenes that depict many facets of human life.
• In regarding this seemingly timeless artifact, the speaker meditates on the persistence of the creative process and the act of art-making.
• He also reflects on the way that art can serve to freeze a moment of time for all eternity.

From his contemplation of the creative process, Keats formulates the most famous encapsulation of the Romantic notion of imagination: "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter." The last lines of the poem - spoken directly by the urn - assert that the only truly important aspect of life is the achievement of lasting beauty through art. Taken together, these lines present a pure crystallization of the aesthetic system of the Romantic poets.

Clearly, Keats' body of work - though relatively small in comparison to other authors of similar stature - played a major role in defining and characterizing the movement known as Romanticism. Through this examination of "Endymion," "Ode to a Nightingale," and "Ode on a Grecian Urn," his development of ideas commonly associated with the core philosophical tenets of Romanticism is shown to be pervasively evident.