Ode on a Grecian Urn In relation to Light in August
Analysis of Ode on a Grecian Urn Stanza I Speaker has idle curiosity about the life on the urn. He raises questions about abstract concepts, such as time and art. The urn is touched by slow time not that of the real world. The urn is sylvan because of the border of leaves encircling the vase and because the scene carved on the urn is set in the woods.
Stanza II The first four lines contrast the ideal in art, love, and nature vs. the real. The last six lines contrast the drawback of frozen time with much diction. thou canst not leave nor ever thou hast not thy bliss The young can t leave their spots under the trees, the lover can t kiss, the lover s love will never lose her beauty.
Stanza III This stanza repeats ideas from the preceding two. It reintroduces the figures of trees, musician and lover. Keats portrays the ideal life on the urn without disappointment and suffering. Human passion is less than desirable because it leaves one wanting more and dissatisfied.
Stanza IV The art on the urn begins to stir the observer s imagination because the viewer sees and is curious about more than is depicted on the urn, such as from where the people come. He contemplates the fact that the streets of this imaginary town will be forever vacant.
Stanza V The observer accuses the urn of teasing him from reality. The urn captivated the observer by creating the ideal world where there was neither imperfection nor change; there was no real life or change. Beauty is the ideal and truthful.
Connotations Paradox, and in turn, juxtapositon, is huge! A. The figures on the urn are free from time but they are frozen in time. B. Dynamic passion is portrayed on cold stone. C. Silent urn cannot talk.
Parallelism Imagery Oxymoron Apostrophe Irony Metaphor
Transitions Stanza I, II, and III the speaker is functioning as the observer. (Questions) Stanza IV the speaker becomes a participant. (His musing on the history of the people on the urn. Where are they going? Where have they been?) Stanza V The tone changes abruptly.
Refer to the passage on page 7 Define evocation, unflagging, monotonous, limpeared (based on context clues), and avatars What do the italics words signify? What does the sentence beginning with backrolling now behind her mean? What is the avatar being compared to? What is the tone of that final sentence? What words signify that tone?
How does this image of Lena continue throughout the novel? What is the irony with the image of the wagon with Lena being described as monotonous, undeviating, and peaceful? How else is the urn related to the story?
REFER TO PAGE 189 What do the urns represent? What does blanched mean?
What would you see as a passerby at Joanna Burden s house? What was the real truth behind their relationship?
What would a passerby think about Hightower s house? What is the truth about his business, the sign, and his life?
So what about Ode in relation to Light s narrative focus and structure of the narrative? If the hills of north-central Mississippi are like an urn, then the action that takes place on them is a?» Hahn, Stephen. Life Is Motion: Keats and Faulkner in the Classroom.
Use a sort of double vision when looking at both the poem and novel. Who is a nymph, faun, and satyr, in the novel? What is the significance of the reversal of the quest beginning with Lena s pursuit of Lucas and ending with Byron s pursuit of Lena? What analogy does this have to the representation of pursuit on an urn?
Faulkner s Words The Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies. Life if motion and motion is concerned with what makes man move which are ambition, power, pleasure.the aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that 100 years later when a stranger looks at it, it moves again because it is life.