Reading and Writing Skills for Students of Literature in English: Romanticism Enric Monforte Jacqueline Hurtley Bill Phillips

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” (p. 1820) John Keats PoeticLanguage1/GrecianUrn.jpg m/opium/john- keats.jpg

the poem provides “a violent contrast [...] between the form of the vase, a perfect and unchanging definition, and the tumult of action inscribed upon its surface” (William Walsh, Pelican Guide to English Literature p. 233). the Ode imagines “a world of process halted in a moment of ecstatic intensity” (Leon Waldoff in Duncan Wu’s Romanticism: A Critical Reader p. 319). the Ode is a “calculated inquiry into the function of art - and of its relation to life” (Andrew Motion Keats p. 389). What does it mean?

Thou still unravished 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 loath? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? What is happening in the first stanza? am/102/PoeticLanguage1/G recianUrn.jpg

It’s an orgy

Nicolas Poussin A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term, London, The National Gallery. gallery.org.uk/Web Media/Images/62/ NG62/eNG62.jpg

Bacchus and Ariadne Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) c National Gallery, London

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, 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 Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Apollo and Marsyas Pietro Perugino Pietro_Perugino/apollo.jpeg

Luca Signorelli, Il regno di Pan,

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, Forever piping songs forever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! Forever warm and still to be enjoyed, Forever panting, and forever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, 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 dressed? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this 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.

Detail from the Parthenon Frieze (Elgin Marbles) in the British Museum since du/courses/eng/s05 /eng /images/elginmar bles2.gif

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.

“It is a commonplace that Keats’s knowledge of ancient Greek was negligible.” Martin Aske in Keats and Hellenism (Aske 35) kthrashe/images/keats.jpeg

Zeus Orpheus Galerias/zeus-posidon.jpg uk/clubs/music/images/or pheus.jpg

allery.org.uk/WebM edia/Images/62/NG 62/eNG62.jpg

Cool’d a long age in the deep-delv’d earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim from “Ode to a Nightingale”

labour/Images/millworkers.jpg nitedstates/childlabor/full.jpg

allery.org.uk/collecti on/features/potm/20 04/feb/img/feb_scre ensaver.jpg

“He [the poet] is the rock of defence for human nature; an upholder and preserver, carrying everywhere with him relationship and love” William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads 1800 Does Keats see himself as the poet- priest, leading the people to Arcadia? 01/images/elginmarbles2.gif

What does “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” mean? 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.

“beauty is truth, truth beauty” “...this statement of equivalence means nothing to me. But on re-reading the whole Ode, this line strikes me as a serious blemish on a beautiful poem, and the reason must be either that I fail to understand it, or that it is a statement which is untrue.” T.S. Eliot Selected Essays 1932

Thou still unravished 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 loath? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

“old story handed down from the past” “an inscription on a coin or medal; explanatory words on a map, a picture, etc,” “legend”