To Autumn by John Keats

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To Autumn, John Keats

"In 'To Autumn', Keats expresses his love of this beautiful time of year, a season that has inspired many artists before and since, including photographers." 

John Keats lived only 25 years from 1795-1821, but in those short years, he made a place for himself as one of the greatest Romantic poets in the English language. He came from humble beginnings, but a combination of private encouragement and public criticism pushed him to refine his poetic craft to the highest standard. Many of his poems, including 'To Autumn', have been described as dignified, melodic and filled with rich imagery. He communicates a visceral joy in the beauty he saw around him, dedicating many of his poems to objects, places, and nature. In To Autumn, Keats expresses his love of this beautiful time of year, a season that has inspired many artists before and since, including photographers...

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John Keats (1795-1821) TO AUTUMN 1. SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o’er - brimm’d their clammy cells. 2. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, Drows’d with the fume of poppies, 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. 3. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, —  While 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 bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

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When you are asked to analyze a poem, paying attention to such items as rhyme, meter, voice, enjambment, imagery and all the thousands of literary terms that leave you reeling, or retching, depending on your current state of mind - do not panic. Because if you like words and love music, you have all the necessary skills and equipment in place already, I assure you. How do I know this, and how can I make such a huge generalization? Well, unless you are a plank of wood or a big rock that somebody brought into the classroom and forgot about, you can do it. This is because you are a unique, thinking, feeling human being, equipped with senses. Now you may not have all five, but I guarantee that if you start your analysis by using those you have, then you are well on the way to understanding and appreciating poetry. After I go through how I believe this works for everybody, I will give you some good web sites and a few tips to clarify the technicalities. My initial approach, though, is to ignore these in favor of just using your brain, imagination and those senses. Get physical with the poem, become the poet. To demonstrate how this works, take a look at Keats' 'Ode to Autumn'. Do not worry about word that you find unfamiliar, you can look them up later, or read the interpretation most books provide. No, just read it aloud to yourself, (or if you have a completely trustworthy friend or lover or whatever, who is not going to use this as evidence of insanity or lack of cool),or to an appreciative audience. You have got to try to see what Keats is seeing, mist, fruit, apples, harvested goodness, granary bread, Indian Summer type sun and buzzing bees. He gives you images of what he looks upon, straight away. So already, you can identify visual imagery - but don't go there yet. Everybody can relate to Fall, how we see misty mornings, see a less bright, but sometimes warming sun, see drowsy insects, see birds preparing to leave for Winter in warmer places. So now you have spoken the words, seen the pictures and heard yourself. Now, let us really listen to the sounds. "Nah", you say "it's words on a page," but don't forget you have said those words aloud, now say them or read them again, silently. As you have guessed, you have no need for an audience this time. Read it again, and hear in your mind, the words that recall sounds for you. The only word that might grab you could be "songs", or maybe it could be "music" - ok, that's good enough, because when you relate it to the sounds of nature that Keats

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expresses, such as lambs bleating, crickets singing, swallows twittering, and so on, you have hit the auditory image nail on the head. Next, it is entirely your choice whether you read it aloud or savor it quietly, because you are going to touch, or at any rate, share a tactile moment with John. Call to mind what you understand by "plump" or "swell" or "stubble" or "close-bosomed" - OK behave yourself! But you will have experienced three dimensional, or physical imagery. The whole thing is building into something sensual, alive and tangible. Next, I would ask you to put taste and smell together because I think they are almost inseparable. I mean, think about how boring and unappetizing food becomes when you have a cold. Who wants to eat something chewy, slimy and crunchy? I speak of steak, fried onions and french fries, without the aromas that tickle the taste buds, because of a blocked nose. So with that as my  justification, smell and taste go together. Again, I leave it to you as to whether you read aloud or silently - I personally would declaim the poem with meaning and feeling, savoring scent and flavor. You have "sweet kernel" "cyder presses", with the nutty, appley smells making your mouth water, not to mention "fruit with ripeness to the core," and the flowers for the bees, suggesting sweet golden honey to eat, scents to savor. OK, you have read the poem four times and I really hope terminal boredom has not taken away the will to live. What I hope is, you have found something to connect with, that links to your own experience, that has touched you sensually, lit up your imagination. That you feel Mr. Keats to be somebody you would not mind talking with, because he tells it like it is and you know now where he is coming from. But teacher needs more, you have got to get into the technical detail, the analysis that seems to take the soul out of a poem. Which is why I am leaving this part to the end. But first let us apply these ideas to every poem you will read, dissect, enjoy, analyze or even throw in the waste-bin! The poet is portraying his or her experiences, encapsulating emotions that are so universal to the human condition, that they say it for the rest of us, better than we can ourselves. They are wordsmiths, painters, dream-catchers, so immerse yourself in what they are sharing first - then let us address the technicalities, the literary labels. For this, I suggest you read the Foreword to the

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book in which you find your poem. This will give you background to your poet, and a time-line you can relate to the genre. Some versions may even define linguistic terms, and if not, use your dictionary or encyclopedia. Next, get out the Norton Poetry Anthology, the Introduction is brilliant for explanations on poetic construction, so will help you to put the labels on the literary contexts. It also contains footnotes that clarify old meanings, but hey, you have already worked them out for yourself. After all, you have used the best and most effective analytical tools at your disposal - your mind, imagination and senses. We must remember the Internet, a marvelous source, but more important, a sort of affirmation of  your interpretations, but leave that till after you have drawn your own conclusions. After nearly 50 years of reading, teaching analyzing and just plain enjoying all forms of literature, to find that there are very clever people out there with tons of letters after their names (I've got ounces), who think the same, is very comforting. So you can always go to Google and put in the poet's name, the poem and the word 'themes and tons of helpful stuff will appear. But be picky, use your own voice always. I beg you, do not do this until you have reached your own conclusions, via your unique qualities and senses. The good websites I would recommend for you are as follows:Elements of Poetry:- http://www.Chipspage.com/2613/  poetry.html Literary Terms: http://www.academic.brooklyn.c uny.edu/english/melani/lit_ter ms.html and at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/  handouts/print/general/gl_html Bear in mind, always, your greatest and best tool for poetry analysis is you. Just feel it, hear it, see it, smell it and taste it for yourself first - that is the biggest and most useful tip I can give.

created by Delores Moore http://www.helium.com/items/240265-tips-on-poetry-analysis-using-ode-to-autumn-by-john-keats-1819

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Classification of Poem

Type of poem: lyric poem Lyric Poetry: a short poem with one speaker (not necessarily the poet) who expresses thought and feeling. Though it is sometimes used only for a brief poem about feeling (like the sonnet).it is more often applied to a poem expressing the complex evolution of thoughts and feeling, such as the elegy, the dramatic monologue, and the ode. The emotion is or seems personal In classical Greece, the lyric was a poem written to be sung, accompanied by a lyre.

Type of lyric poem: ode Ode: a poem of high seriousness with irregular stanzaic forms.

The Composition of "To Autumn"

Keats wrote "To Autumn" after enjoying a lovely autumn day; he described his experience in a letter to his friend Reynolds: "How beautiful the season is now--How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather--Dian skies--I never lik'd stubble fields so much as now--Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow a stubble plain looks warm--in the same way that some pictures look warm--this struck me so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it." General Comments

This ode is a favorite with critics and poetry lovers alike. Harold Bloom calls it "one of the subtlest and most beautiful of all Keats's odes, and as close to perfect as any shorter poem in the English Language." Allen Tate agrees that it "is a very nearly perfect piece of style"; however, he goes on to say, "it has little to say." This ode deals with the some of the concerns presented in his other odes, but there are also significant differences. (1) There is no visionary dreamer or attempted flight from reality in this poem; in fact, there is no narrative voice or persona at all. The poem is grounded in the real world; the vivid, concrete imagery immerses the reader in the sights, feel, and sounds of autumn and its progression. (2) With its depiction of the progression of autumn, the poem is an unqualified celebration of process. (I am using the words  process, flux, and change interchangeably in my discussion of Keats's poems.) Keats totally accepts the natural world, with its mixture of ripening, fulfillment, dying, and death. Each stanza integrates suggestions of its opposite or its predecessors, for they are inherent in autumn also. Because this ode describes the process of fruition and decay in autumn, keep in mind the passage of time as you read it.

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Analysis Stanza I:

Keats describes autumn with a series of specific, concrete, vivid visual images. The stanza begins with autumn at the peak of fulfillment and continues the ripening to an almost unbearable intensity. Initially autumn and the sun "load and bless" by ripening the fruit. But the apples become so numerous that their weight bends the trees; the gourds "swell," and the hazel nuts "plump." The danger of being overwhelmed by fertility that has no end is suggested in the flower and bee images in the last four lines of the stanza. Keats refers to "more" later flowers "budding" (the -ing form suggests activity that is ongoing or continuing); the potentially overwhelming number of flowers is suggested by the repetition "And still more" flowers. The bees cannot handle this abundance, for their cells are "o'er-brimm'd." In other words, their cells are not just full, but are over-full or brimming over with honey. Process or change is also suggested by the reference to Summer in line 11; the bees have been gathering and storing honey since summer. "Clammy" describes moisture; its unpleasant connotations are accepted as natural, without judgment. Certain sounds recur in the beginning lines-- s, m, l. Find the words that contain these letters; read them aloud and listen. What is the effect of these sounds--harsh, explosive, or soft? How do they contribute to the effect of the stanza, if they do? The final point I wish to make about this stanza is subtle and sophisticated and will probably interest you only if you like grammar and enjoy studying English: The first stanza is punctuated as one sentence, and clearly it is one unit. It is not, however, a complete sentence; it has no verb. By omitting the verb, Keats focuses on the details of  ripening. In the first two and a half lines, the sun and autumn conspire (suggesting a close working relationship and intention). From lines 3 to 9, Keats constructs the details using parallelism; the details take the infinitive form ( to plus a verb): "to load and bless," "To bend...and fill," "To swell...and plump," and "to set." In the last two lines, he uses a subordinate clause, also called a dependent clause (note the subordinating conjunction "until"); the subordinate or dependent clause is appropriate because the oversupply of honey is the result of-or dependent upon--the seemingly unending supply of flowers.

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Stanza II

The ongoing ripening of stanza I, which if continued would become unbearable, has neared completion; this stanza slows down and contains almost no movement. Autumn, personified as a reaper or a harvester, crosses a brook and watches a cider press. Otherwise Autumn is listless and even falls asleep. Some work remains; the furrow is "half-reap'd," the winnowed hair refers to ripe grain still standing, and apple cider is still being pressed. However, the end of the cycle is near. The press is squeezing out "the last oozings." Find other words that indicate slowing down. Notice that Keats describes a reaper who is not harvesting and who is not turning the press. Is the personification successful, that is, does nature become a person with a personality, or does nature remain an abstraction? Is there a sense of depletion, of things coming to an end? Does the slowing down of the process suggest a stopping, a dying or death? Does the personification of  autumn as a reaper with a scythe suggest another kind of reaper--the Grim Reaper? Speak the last line of this stanza aloud, and listen to the pace (how quickly or slowly you say the words). Is Keats using the sound of words to reinforce and/or to parallel the meaning of the line?

Stanza III

Spring in line 1 has the same function as Summer in stanza I; they represent process, the flux of  time. In addition, spring is a time of a rebirth of life, an association which contrasts with the explicitly dying autumn of this stanza. Furthermore, autumn spells death for the now "fullgrown" lambs which were born in spring; they are slaughtered in autumn. And the answer to the question of line 1, where are Spring's songs, is that they are past or dead. The auditory details that follow are autumn's songs. The day, like the season, is dying. The dying of day is presented favorably, "soft-dying." Its dying also creates beauty; the setting sun casts a "bloom" of "rosy hue" over the dried stubble left after the harvest. Keats accepts all aspects of autumn; this includes the dying, and so he introduces sadness; the gnats "mourn" in a "wailful choir" and the doomed lambs bleat (Why does Keats use "lambs," rather than "sheep" here? would the words have a different effect on the reader?). It is a "light" or enjoyable wind that "lives or dies," and the treble of the robin is pleasantly "soft." The swallows are gathering for their winter migration. Keats blends living and dying, the pleasant and the unpleasant, because they are inextricably one; he accepts the reality of the mixed nature of the world.

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Vocabulary and Allusions Stanza I Line 2, maturing sun: causes to mature; that is, the sun makes the fruit ripen. Line 4, thatch: covering of a roof made of straw, leaves, or other dried plants, eaves: overhang of roof. Line 5, mossed : covered with moss. Line 7, gourd : the groud family includes squash, pumpkins, and cucumbers. Line 11, o'er : poetic form of  over ; thus the cells are overfilled. cells: honey-filled cells or honeycomb in the beehive. Stanza II Line 1, store: an abundance, a great quantity; a storehouse or warehouse. Line 3, granary: a storehouse for grain, often after it has been threshed (the grain has been beaten from the rest of the plant). Line 4, winnowing: to separate the chaff from the grain by fanning or by means of the wind. Line 5, furrow: a cut or trench made by a plow; poetic usage, a plowed field. Line 6, drowsed : made sleepy. hook : a sickle or scythe, used to harvest grains and other crops.  poppy: poppies used to grow in fields of grain. Poppies are the source of  opium. Line 7, swath: the sweep of a scythe in mowing; the path cut in one sweep of a scythe. twined : poetic form of  entwined or twisted . Line 8, gleaner : a person who gathers what the reapers have left in a field. Line 10, cider-press: a machine that squeezes apples to make cider. Stanza III Line 3, barred clouds: thin, hoizontal clouds which resemble bars or strips. Line 4, stubble: the dried stumps of wheat and other grains left after reaping. Line 6, sallows: willows. borne aloft : carried high. Line 7, bourn: domain or realm. Line 8, croft : a small enclosed field.