Imagination in Keats

A detailed Summary of Imagination in Keats

John Keats was writing in an era of romanticism where imagination, freedom, and innovation were becoming present in the writers of this time period. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a renowned poem written by Keats during the romantic era. If a person were to read any of Keats poems, one would realize that a newly emergent style is present in all of his works. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" exhibits signs of imagination through the work with the ideas it speaks about. Since imagination is the highest ideal and the most important thing in the world, Keats brings this idea to life with the descriptions of music, love, and youth. He wants the reader to imagine a world through the urn and not to see what would be present if the urn could act out the apparent scenes it portrays.

Keats writes about seeing a man playing the pipes and how sweet the music is. The urn has placed a frozen image in time of people playing music and he writes about how the music is sweeter unheard. "For ever piping songs for ever new." To the speaker, the unheard song is forever new and wishes for the music not to play to the sensual ear for fear of damaging the thoughts of sweet music in his head. He is afraid that the beauty the urn exhibits will t

The urn also includes pictures of love. Keats explains how "two bold lovers never kiss," and how much more pleasurable that picture is then seeing them kiss. He realizes that love has two sides to it and he sees the side of anticipation. "More happy love, more happy, happy love." Since the act is never completed, he does not know the whole story. The loves could end in not kissing or fading away as some love does and Keats wishes not to see this. To Keats, the love can forever be anticipated which is sometime better then having the love. No bitter words of hate or ideas of acceptance are seen when viewing the urn because it does not portray the end result. The urn lets the viewer use their imagination to see the beauty of love and what it can be.

Through time, youth fades to age and life begins to decay. Though many would like to believe that they would live forever, time does fade and things move on. Keats writes about how the urn pictures youth at its prime and how the pictures on the urn can never fade away. Everything from the people to the trees will remain pure and beautiful with the youth they hold. One can imagine a beautiful tree with bright leave and a young girl underneath it untouched by age and decay. The urn plays a great role with imagination in the fact that it never changes through time. It can only remain the same with the same beautiful images that are present. One's imagination can make wonderful stories occur and can bring the intended beauty to life. The urn is everything that youth represents because it remains timeless.

Keats also writes about images of youth and how youth i

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Approximate Word count = 1089
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English