Ode on a Grecian Urn

I am glad we had the extra day to work on this assignment. As I sat at the computer yesterday, all ready to complete my work, something hit me as I read through the poems this time. One stuck out in particular, one that I've read for school before, have had extensive class discussions on it, and can probably never write anything definitive on a piece that even the best seem to be mystified at. Here's my take on Keats' “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” I'm sorry it is so long but it took several paragraphs to get my idea across (and get the assignment in).
Matt Butcher
English 640
April 6, 2005

The Pastoral in Keats' “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

Sometimes tackling poetry can be hard work. Even the best scholars can have interpretive difficulties. Some of these poems end up with volume upon volume of new criticism. For some, there is nothing left to say. For others, a new interpretation can come as a flash, especially when pieces of the puzzle are added together. John Keats' “Ode on a Grecian Urn” seems to be miscategorized on the Strand and Boland book The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. It is this special category that makes it meaningful.

Keats' poem is not labeled under the category of “The Ode” as expected but rather under “The Pastoral.” This automatically makes the mind shift from the rules of the ode to the definition of the pastoral. While it does remain an ode at heart as it elevates the object it describes, it actually can be seen to celebrate a life and set of virtues that the speaker cannot possess.

Strand and Boland say, “[i]n a simplified definition, it is that mode of poetry that sought to imitate and celebrate the virtues of rural life” (207). In a way, they are saying that this mode of poetry reflects upon a life that the poet and reader want to enjoy the idea of but really don't want the reality. Strand and Boland go on to discuss how the Industrial Revolution impacted the pastoral. However, the question arises that if this form of poetry was “both an escape and an idea” (208), why didn't all of the poets and readers abandon the Industrial Revolution and go live rurally?

In essence, Keats wants to escape to the ideas and themes behind “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” In the poem, he holds a centuries-old urn where the images are static, captured like a modern day photograph. “Thou still unravished bride of quietness” (214) is his description of the scenes forever inscribed into the urn. “What men or gods are these?” he asks and then realizes that they will never move, that “Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave /Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare.” The images are forever still, with the piper's songs being “forever new” to the lover's beauty that “cannot fade.”

Keats realizes that it would be wonderful to be stuck in those happiest of moments. Even though the image will never get to kiss his beauty, because of this, the lover will always be in love and will not be ravished by time, such as a piper's tune becoming old, or the tree never shedding its leaves and never even leaving the wondrous Spring. This is the same feeling of the pastoral, to wish for that perfection of life that living communally with nature brings.

Keats realizes with this pastoral sentiment in his ode that this wishing for the perfect life is only a wish. As he contemplates the perfection that the urn depicts, he realizes that these characters have no beginning or end, only the time in which they are frozen. The priest taking its sacrifice must therefore leave his town and its “streets forevermore /Will silent be.” That is the price of the urn's perfection. As we humans need a past to comprise our essence and a future to look forward to, the depictions on the urn are trapped.

Keats even agrees that this poem is more pastoral when he talks to the poem/urn. The urn is the pastoral. Note how the title utilizes the preposition “on.” He may use this for other odes, but here it represents a fact he is trying to impart on the reader when he says, “Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought /As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!” Humanity may want to closer commune with nature, and hearken to that subject with the pastoral form, but like the Industrial Revolution, humanity continues its move away from nature. We may want nature, but we also want the comforts that come of “progress.” In this ode, Keats may want to be trapped forever in happiness, but realizes the inherent flaws in being trapped forever, without a beginning or end. Once humanity realizes the truth of this, humanity will understand the beauty its existence.

Works cited:
Strand, Mark and Eavan Boland, eds. The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. New York: W.W. Norton. 2000.


Ode on a Grecian Urn

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-fringed 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, unwearièd,

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 for ever 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 drest?

What little town by river or sea-shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of its 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.'