Ode
on a Grecian Urn
By John
Keats
This ode is a masterpiece in English literature. It is most famous among Keats’ all odes. It is liked by literature students and scholars. It is said that Keats visited the British museum in 1817. There he saw a Grecian urn. Its beauty attracted him so much that he decided to write an ode on it.
Here this thing must be cleared that there is no
special urn found in the museum which can be attributed with Keats that he saw
it and decided to compose a poem. Keats admired the scenes portrayed on the urn
but he was unable to understand whether the characters on the Urn were humans
or super humans.
In the first stanza of the ode, there
are male people, not known if they are men or gods, playing bagpipe and small
drums are chasing the women. But the women are trying to escape away from them.
It seems as if a wild party is going on.
Second stanza of the poem continues
the first stanza scene. The wild party is on full swing and the young people
are singing and dancing with full enthusiasm and the young boys are trying to
kiss the beautiful girls but all in vain.
In the third stanza of the poem, the
poet addresses the trees and young men printed on the urn. The poet says that
they will never lose their freshness, youth and beauty because this Grecian urn
has made then immortal.
In the fourth Stanza, a young cow
that is lowing, is being taken to an altar of a town which is beside of a river
or a sea-shore. The cow is decorated with garlands.
The fifth stanza is about the urn
itself. Keats addresses the urn and says that people living in this world will
lose their beauty and lives. But the people on the urn are immortal. The urn is
the friend of living people because it conveys the message that beauty is truth
and truth beauty, the only reality to be known by the human beings.
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