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-fring'd 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?
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!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
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 forever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
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.
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.
John keats believed that true happiness was to be found in art and natural beauty. His poem 'ode on a grecıan urn' implies that art represent beauty. but he thinks that beauty is impossible in reality.He compare real beauty sense and mortal sense in a way. Because he describe urn's beauty more than it is.He says that the piper’s “unheard” melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time ın the below lines:
ReplyDelete'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 '
These lines affected me most in this poem and I want to share this idea with you.
And you can listen this poem by entering this link
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gOShpPL3Ds&feature=related
in this poem, poet adresses an urn. and talks about the figures frozen on it. and what can be their story and meaning?
ReplyDeletehe thinks that unheard things like the figure of a melodist's playing pipe on the urn, can endure to the time. because even if years have passed, the figure will remain the same. his lover's face will never fade, their love will remain the same. he believes in the eternity through art. he emphasis both the art and the nature.
art is the one way to reach eternity.
and he says that beauty is truth, truth is beauty,and this is the comprehension of the art pleasure.
GULNOZA NURULLAEVA
ReplyDelete“More happy love! more happy, happy love!” ( line 25). When one reads lines such as this, one cannot help but think that the poet must have been very, very happy, and that, in fact, the tone of the poem is light and filled with joy. However, this is not the case in John Keats’s poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn. At first glance, the tone of the poem seems light and flowery. However, when one looks deeper into the poem to find its underlying meanings, one discovers that the tone of the poem is very morbid. This is because the poem has two separate levels. Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn has a superficial level of happiness and joy, which acts as a façade for a deeper level of morbidity and death, most likely because of the fact that Keats was dying as he wrote this poem.
Pictures represent a moment that we lived.Just a moment...As if time does not exist.There is no sound and movement in it.The speaker tries to explain what timelessness is.There are terms like ''quiteness,still,unravished''in the very fist line.These terms help us to understand what makes a picture, picture or a painting.But at the same time we know that picture and painting is a kind of art and it includes eternity in it.Real meaning of life is in these moments.
ReplyDeleteIn the poem, the concept of the time is relieved in a different way from what we know about the time. when time is passing, all things are changing around us. we and our beloved ones are geting older; they are not the same as we met them. but on the urn there are people and they will remain same inspite of the passing years. They were drawn on it in order to catch the eternity, timelessness. As time passes we still remember them as how they were pictured. To reach the eternity the best way is the art.
ReplyDelete-MerveKıymaz-
ReplyDeletewhen i was readin the poem second time,i realised something that i ignored in first reading.
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!
here we have a hidden paradox that results from someone to only want more and soundless music is desired by the soul.
-MerveKıymaz-
ReplyDeleteOMG I've found another paradox:))
the human figures carved into the urn create this paradox:They are free from time, but they are simultaneously frozen in time.They don2t have to face with being old and death but neither can they have experiences like '' the youth can never kiss the maiden,the figures in the procession can never return to their homes.''
When we consider the poem generally, we se that J. Keats describes us an urn which actually tells him a lot of things about the life before him. He interpret the pictures on the urn and by doing this, he actually tells us different life stories. He describes different aspects of life. At the end he makes a conclusion on these stories. "The only truth is beauty of nature." J. Keats believe the real happiness the real meaning of life is all in art and nature' beauty. So we see the evidence of this idea in this poem as a whole.
ReplyDeleteIn the poem the poet similes the love to the art.He says that lovers will love each other for ever as the artist will always do their works. According to him these two things represent the eternity of beauty.And while I was reading the poem I thought that the poet is very happy and there is something which provides this happiness and I think that is beauty of nature...
ReplyDeleteTülay ÖRÜCÜ
ReplyDeleteArt is a path to the eternity. We can get this idea from the poem. You know,in the poem the urn is called a 'sylvan historian' and it bears various images of life: some maidens being madly pursued by their lovers, the piper playing on his instrument to produce 'unheard melodies', the youthful singer singing under the trees,the impassioned lover just about to kiss his beloved etc.
That is the way we will remember them. On the urn, the immortality & the beauty have been captured by the artist.
Fatma Kaya
ReplyDeleteKeat discusses art and art’s audience in this poem. Keat tries to emphasize how the urn relates the idea of ‘truth’. The urn is an external object capable of producing a story outside of the time of its creation, and because of this ability the poet labels it a "sylvan historian". The urn is created from stone and tells the story of artist who made it and did not communicate through words. Like stone, time has little effect on it and it can endure time even if years pass as an eternal piece of artwork. As representing art, an urn serves as one component in describing the relationship between art and humanity. The urn, as a piece of art, requires an audience and this allows the urn to participate with humanity, and allow for the imagination to operate. Also, the symbol of the urn allows for the narrator to ask questions, and the silence of the urn reinforces the ability for the imagination to operate.
SEDEF KONUK
ReplyDeleteThe 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.time is frozen; the trees will never loose their leaves. In the same way the beauty of his beloved one will never go away.
In poem I notice that how the poet uses art to imagine something. In a part of the poem, poet imagines a town which is deserted and there is nothing but only silence.The poet wonder where the villagers are. He tries to guess by imagining.And it is very important to feel something by using only imagination.
ReplyDeleteJiyan Taher :
ReplyDeleteIn this poem speaker speaks to urn not about the urn, so the speaker uses apostrophe when he speaks to the urn as if it is alive. He treats the urn like it is listening to him like a human. The speaker describes some pictures of urn and firstly he describes it as if there are frozen in time which is unchanging. He compares the urn to an “unravish’d bride” functions at a number of levels. Then he compares the music coming from the pipe which is pleasing, with the music coming from the urn which is for the spirit. At the end of the poem he addresses the young piper, calling him “happy melodist, unwearied/ Forever piping songs for ever new;” because his songs will continue forever.
In a world so complex, we seem to have lost the true meaning of beauty. "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty," John Keats wrote in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn." So, what is our truth? When the word beauty is mentioned, different images and meanings come to mind.
ReplyDeleteThe battle may derive from our insecurities, and our need for attention and approval, possibly a result from past traumas. Physical beauty is only "skin deep" and true beauty stems from the soul. Healing our insecurities or "ugly scars" we begin to discover who we are, and recognize our beauty within. The wise Aristotle once stated, "The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he doesn't feel them, but because he is a man of big and heroic temper."
Beauty, however, is not limited to the appearance of women. Music, drama, literature and paintings are all sources of beauty.