Ode To Autumn
John Keats was born to a likeable young man, Thomas Keats, who was described as being energetic and intelligent, and to a flirtatious, young girl who was said to be dangerous if left alone with, Frances Jennings, in October 31, 1795. There is some uncertainty about the exact birth of this young couple's first son because the date of birth was initially introduced on the day of his baptism, which was the following December. After the young couple married in October 1794 at St. George's in Hanover with disapproving reasons by Frances' family, they could not do otherwise perhaps because of John's expectancy. For reasons unknown, Keats respected October 31, 1795 as the date being his birthday. There are three brothers that followed him: George in February 1797, Thomas in November 1799, and Edward in April 1801 then, finally, a sister, Frances Mary in June 1803. According to George, John, was a complete "mamma's boy," who also resembled her in appearance and temperament. Early in his life, John Keats seems to have been a boy of intense feelings and creative with vivid imagination, deeply devoted to his mother. Though the family atmosphere was one of warmth and freedom, in which the brothers grew together forming an unbreakable
Many critics have related issues concerning the poem overall. Each have a different opinion on the general meaning, but all agree that the poem is written perfectly. As each individual interprets the rise and fall of the sun in a rather unique and personal diversion, explication varies from critic to critic, yet manages to connect by another. Walter Jackson Bate, who is the editor of Keats, A Collection of Critical Essays, is among the few critics looked upon as having made the one assertion that almost all can agree upon. It is because of the particularly sharp essence of the poem that allows Bate to find it "one of the most nearly perfect poems in English." Bate also claims that the parts of the poem, "contribute directly to the whole, with nothing left dangling or independent."(Bate, 155) Bate also states that with a short space, many different resolutions are occurring, which only supports the old proverb, "Quality not Quantity." The poem seems to have been written virtually effortlessly with a simple yet appropriate variation in the basic ten-line stanza giving the poem a prolonged effect and fulfillment. Throughout the entire poem, the poet is absent; there is no "I," and no sign of him. The poem is self-sufficient and genuine with its overall purpose and definition. Keats aspired to a new level, which he himself has called, "stationing" in other words, a process by which unit the opposite. All three stanzas are united by the same theme and separated by the absorption of another. For example the theme of the first stanza is ripeness and of a growth reaching its climax beneath the "maturing sun." The pressure of the fruit on the trees vines loading up with juices and the beehives being already full to the brim, do not stop growth from continuing or autumn to surrender. The process allows "budding more" and "later flowers."(Bate, 156) The first stanza becomes a process and a beneficent agricultural conspire, plotting secretly with the sun to bring ripeness to a state of awe. The stanza is aureate, Spenserian in the fullness of style, replete with heavily accented single syllable parts of speech. The process of Autumn loads, blesses, bends, fills, swells, plumps, and sets budding, the only receptive consciousness of all activity is given by the bees, who sip their "aching pleasure nigh" to such a glut that "they think the warm days will never cease." The honey of harvest pleasure has "o'er-brimm'd" their natural resources. This allows the manifestation of the picture to come alive into the imaginative view. The fullness of nature's own grace, her free and overwhelming gift of it, burdens the stanza to the ripest state. * In the second stanza, where one might expect the process continue in an elaborate effort, there is stillness. While the first stanza concentrates upon the natural world through images of growth and process, the second stanza shifts to a more artful and stylized conception by representing autumn as a figure captured and framed within a series of perspectives that are recognizably conventional. In several appropriate postures and settings, one can experience an imaginative description of a personified season. * Autumn has now become a harvester that is not harvesting. (Bate, 156) It is immobile at first while "sitting careless on a granary floor," or asleep on a "half-reap'd furrow." Yet it manages to save the interlocking flowers that have mended with it. Movement is momentarily achieved as the figure is keeping "steady" its "laden head," crossing a brook. Autumn is again disturbed as it stops, watching the "oozing" apple cider "hours by hours." There is a similarity bestowed upon this stanza which is related to ones own live; the end is approaching. Yet, this association does not conceive to be true until the last stanza, where the once personified features of autumn is now embarking on concrete images of life and death. The opening question implies that the season o
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Approximate Word count = 3181
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)
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