Please Help

[mono]

I really don't see any yearning for Spring. I see only a dismissal of those who yearn for it. Can you point out where he yearns for Spring?

I see what you mean, Bandini, and perhaps Keats did intend on communicating a dismissal of spring. I more perceived the longing for spring in the first two lines:

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too

More out of mere opinion, and art can surely own an immense number of interpretations, in the first two lines, I feel that Keats longs for the spring to arrive, or feels that it appears on its arrival with the "redbreast whistling" and the "swallow twittering," arriving for another upcoming spring. Without the full joys of spring present, however, and not to sound too cliché, I feel that Keats attempts making the best of his present situation - his "music" that already surrounds him, though not quite as sweet as the "songs of Spring."

[zomgmouse]

Has anyone noticed too, how wonderful and lush a picture he paints, regardless of the fact that NOT ONE colour has been used?

[Paul Roe]

I have known this poem by heart since the early 1990s and it is one of my all time favorites.

It is one of those poems where the imagery tells the story and suggests the meaning. Of course, all great poems have great imagery, but some rely on it more than others, to the point of being precursors to the self-consciously imagistic poems of William Carlos Williams.

With autumn's ever-slowing and ever-easing pace comes drowsiness and mourning, but it is pleasing sleepiness and indulgent sadness. :O)

Enjoy a lifelong relationship with Keats. Once he touches you, you will be taking wing with the nightingale forever.

Paul
antiaging4geeks.com

[Moyze]

Hi There

I've really been struggling for the past few days with John Keats' ode "To Autumn" especially the last stanza.Here if goes:

"Where are the songs of Spring?Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too
While the barred clouds bloom the soft dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue,
'Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourne:
Hedge-crickets sing; and now woth treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies."

Okay the first line suggests that the speaker is longing for spring.Perhaps because "clouds bloom the soft-dying day" instead flowers that bloom in spring.Clouds are symbolic of darkness, gloomy...but what effect does this have on the poem.
The tone is dispodent e.g "AY, where are they"(line 1), and images of
"gnats mourning...wailing...dying day" all creates a mournful mood.But why, is there mourning?I don't know i just can't seem to capture the meaning.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Hi Zannie, i dont confess to being a Keats genious but he died of Tuberculosis17 months after this poem was written. When he wrote this poem he was very much aware that he had the disease and fully aware(as he was training as a medical student) that he would probably die from the disease. Its not a definate and some poetic critics have argued other ideas. Hope it helped though.

[Michael T]

I think you should look at the Ode with the idea of death in your mind. You might want to consider whether there is an arguement for the 'person' in the second stanza being a representation of death watching and waiting with his sickle:
...while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Imagine how you would feel if you were in the autumn of your life. Think of how people view spring and associate it with youth and new life and how it is admired and envied. Yet maturity too has something to offer, full of the experience and appreciation of life that youth or here ‘Spring’ knows nothing of. But maturity brings with it a growing awareness of the approach of death. Time, like the sun, is passing…conspiring to bring the end of life.
Also, as mentioned by the previous poster, Keats' would have been aware of his own fate as soon as he coughed up blood. He was also badly affected by his brother's death and it is reflected in his work.

[David R]

I love this poem. Especially the second stanza with its personifications. The imagery here is so beautiful and evocative. It would be hard to find lines in other works which capture the essence of sweetness like this stanza does.

I think the poem can be explained by one word: mellowness.
Here is a dictionary definition of the word 'mellow': soft and rich; free from harshness, softened or matured by age or experience; slightly drunk; soft sweet and juicy; well matured, smooth; rich, loamy.

What else is there to say except that this is a great poem which glows with static beauty. One of Keats' best.