Ode On a Grecian Urn

"Ode On a Grecian Urn"

Urn: vase

 ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ is an ode written by John Keats, which addresses a beautiful urn or a vase from Greece. It explores the essence that attributes to human happiness, on a universal scale—Beauty. The Ode is divided into five stanzas which address the varied figures and beautiful forms of art, portrayed on the urn. It is one of the most popular poems of Romantic poet, John Keats. It is one of the most widely read poems amongst Literature students and scholars alike

Analysis

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:

What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

In the first stanza, the speaker stands before an ancient Grecian urn and addresses it. He is preoccupied with its depiction of pictures frozen in time. It is the “still unravish’d bride of quietness,” the “foster-child of silence and slow time.” He also describes the urn as a “historian” that can tell a story. He wonders about the figures on the side of the urn and asks what legend they depict and from where they come. He looks at a picture that seems to depict a group of men pursuing a group of women and wonders what their story could be: “What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? / What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?”

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

 In the second stanza, the speaker looks at another picture on the urn, this time of a young man playing a pipe, lying with his lover beneath a glade of trees. The speaker says that the piper’s “unheard” melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time. He tells the youth that, though he can never kiss his lover because he is frozen in time, he should not grieve, because her beauty will never fade.

 Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearièd,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

In the third stanza, he looks at the trees surrounding the lovers and feels happy that they will never shed their leaves. He is happy for the piper because his songs will be “for ever new,” and happy that the love of the boy and the girl will last forever, unlike mortal love, which lapses into “breathing human passion” and eventually vanishes, leaving behind only a “burning forehead, and a parching tongue.”

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea-shore, 35

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

In the fourth stanza, the speaker examines another picture on the urn, this one of a group of villagers leading a heifer to be sacrificed. He wonders where they are going (“To what green altar, O mysterious priest...”) and from where they have come. He imagines their little town, empty of all its citizens, and tells it that its streets will “for evermore” be silent, for those who have left it, frozen on the urn, will never return.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

 In the final stanza, the speaker again addresses the urn itself, saying that it, like Eternity, “doth tease us out of thought.” He thinks that when his generation is long dead, the urn will remain, telling future generations its enigmatic lesson: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” The speaker says that that is the only thing the urn knows and the only thing it needs to know.

Themes:

 

1) Innocence:

The urn represents an innocent world, unaffected by the suffering and hardship that come with change. The trees never have to deal with losing their leaves, the violent sacrifice of a cow hasn’t been committed yet, and even the urn itself is "unravish’d," or pure. By the end of the poem, however, the speaker begins to wonder if what he took for innocence might actually be a form of cold distance and alienation.

2) Transience:

The people on this urn never have to deal with changes in their world. Their world is permanently frozen in a single moment. The poem contrasts the timeless world of the urn with the upside-down hourglass that is human life. In the real world, joyful panting after an erotic chase can easily turn into a fever and a bad case of dry mouth. What was once sweet can become a "cloying" mess.

3) Wisdom and Knowledge:

The speaker turns to the urn as a source of wisdom. We take it that he is feeling down on life and love and needs some good advice – and who better to give advice than a thousands-year-old pot? At first, it’s not clear what kind of help the urn can be, seeing as the world it depicts is so different from that of the speaker. But at the end of the poem, it delivers the message that beauty and truth are one and the same. What exactly this means has been a mystery ever since.

4) Art and Culture:

Few people have defended the value of art quite like John Keats. He goes so far as to suggest that the most powerful truths are to be found only in art. This has led some people to criticize him for worshiping dead, inanimate objects: like the urn of this poem. But that’s probably too simplistic of a view. More likely, Keats believed that truth was conveyed through emotions and experiences, not logic or arguments, and that the greatest truths could only be expressed in silence. The urn, for example, has been sitting in ruins or in some dusty room for thousands of years, waiting for sensitive souls like the speaker to come by and listen with a "spiritual ear." And, of course, the same could be said of Keats’s poem, which is just a collection of words on a page until the reader approaches it with the right attitude of discovery.