Ode on a Grecian Urn- Study Notes

Ode on a Grecian Urn

-      John Keats

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” is one of the master pieces of John Keats.  In this poem he talks to the urn as if it were alive. He has created a Greek urn in his mind and has decorated it with three scenes. He calls the urn as "unravish’d bride of quietness". Here, the poet talks about the purity and the antiquity of the urn.

The urn is called the "foster-child" of Silence and slow Time. The true "parent" of the urn would have been the Greek artist who created it. Keats calls the urn as ‘Sylvan Historian’ who can narrate better stories. In fact, the urn is a better storyteller than the poet. The urn tells flowery stories using pictures, while the poet uses "rhymes."  The poet portrays the different actions found on the urn buy asking so many questions:

                      What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

                      What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

   Some people are going and they resemble Gods, A maiden is moving away unwillingly, a lover madly pursues the escaping lover, someone is playing the pipe under the tree and there is wild ecstasy over there. 

          In the second stanza the poet comes out with his immortal line “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard? Are sweeter”. He says that the melodies that we don’t hear are "sweeter" than those we do. This claim is a paradox. Here, the poet points out that the music is played not for the physical ears but for the soul. This can be enjoyed by the individuals at their own levels and pace. Hence the sweetness of the unheard music makes sense. Keats teases the young lover found on the urn telling him that he can never kiss her though he is very near. Further, he comforts him saying that “She cannot fade”.  She will remain beautiful forever and the excitement of the present will also continue.

Keats conveys that the season remains unchanged on the urn. There is Spring always and it never “bid adieu”. So he addresses the branches as “Ah, happy, happy boughs!”.  Similarly, "melodist," is also "happy," like everyone else in this world. He never gets tired of playing music. The songs played by the musician are always fresh and new. That’s because the world of the urn never changes. He thinks the music and "love" go hand in hand, so more music means more love.  In this stanza the poet points out the never ending physical love and erotic pleasures in the line “For ever panting, and for ever young”.  The lover is like a person stuck in the desert. “A burning forehead, and a parching tongue” indicates that as a person craves for water in the desert, the painted person longs for love.

Now the speaker is looking at the third scene on the urn, which depicts an animal sacrifice. The altar is covered with leaves and vegetation that make it green. The poor cow moans or "lows" at the sky. Its sides ("flanks") are dressed in a string or "garland" of flowers. The “mysterious priest” is leading a crowd of people to the place of sacrifice. The speaker infers that this crowd must have come somewhere from the "little town. It is situated either by a river, a sea-shore or on a mountain. He imagines that a small "citadel" protects it. The town is "emptied" because it is a "pious" or holy morning. Although the speaker knows that everyone is headed to a sacrifice, he doesn’t know what the sacrifice is for, and he can never find out. Because, there is "not a soul, to tell" the reason for the holy day.

The final stanza contains the beauty-truth equation. The poet observes that the art surpasses time and life. The depiction on the urn is "overwrought," or too complicated. Keats views the urn as a world where things never change and can never be destroyed. At the end of the poem, Keats conveys the concept of eternity in his most debated line "Beauty is truth, truth beauty”.  He seems to say that both beauty and truth are the same things.  Here beauty may refer to more than just pretty pictures and writings. It is anything that gives us that sense of grandeur and a meaning larger than ourselves. Truth is not something that can be "thought." It’s too remote and complicated, like the idea of eternity. It can only be felt. This super-radical view makes Keats one of the most Romantic of the Romantics. Hence he was hated by many British conservatives when he was alive.

Through the poet's imagination, the urn has been able to preserve a temporary and happy condition in permanence. The urn is a teacher and friend to mankind. Because, it repeats the same lesson to every generation: that truth and beauty are the same thing.  So everyone should try to find beauty in truth.

Keats follows an unique technique to write this poem. Each of the five stanzas in “Grecian Urn” is ten lines long, metered in a relatively precise iambic pentameter. It is divided into a two part rhyme scheme, the last three lines of which are variable. The first seven lines of each stanza follow an ABABCDE rhyme scheme, but the second occurrences of the CDE sounds do not follow the same order.