Keats
As I sat down and read Keats "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" I was very intrigued on how much more difficult it really is to attempt to define what I think the author is really trying to portray in his writing. I find it difficult to gain a mental picture of the authors ideas because I keep seeing something else, not what the author really meant to portray. I will start off this paper with Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn." The first stanza in this poem seems like he is talking to an urn that is sitting on a shelf or over a fireplace. He seem to be asking it questions. In this example Keats states "What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? As I read this line in the poem, it seems that Keats is talking to this urn and asking it what kind of things or the meaning behind all the carvings on the urn. He is asking the urn what legend haunts this urn is it deities or mortals, or could it be both. He is looking for answers to the questions he has about this urn. In the second stanza I get the idea that he is hearing something or trying to listen for something, maybe he is waiting for the urn to speak back to him or even give him
He starts the second stanza by saying "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on. " Here he is saying that if she stops working on the web she is weaving and looks away from the mirror that a curse will be laid upon her and she will loose everything. In the last and final line of the poem he states her blood was frozen slowly, and her eyes were darkened wholly because she has died and this explains the curse that was placed on her after the mirror was broken. " This shows signs of death and never feeling the human feelings again. This poem is more confusing that Keats poem. He paints a more vivid picture that can be seen very well. " Here he is letting us know about someone's death and that since we are alive all we know is what is on earth, maybe this is how God planned us to know only what is tangible except for himself. In line three of the poem she gets up from behind the mirror and made three paces across the room and saw the water-lily bloom, she also saw the helmets and the plume as she looked down to Camelot from her dungeon in the towers high above. In the next couple of stanzas he goes to say that the urn will never feel the feeling and thoughts that we feel along with the lives we live. Also in line three it states that "The mirror crack'd from side to side;" "The curse is come upon me, cried" The Lady of Shalott. Next, I read the poem "The Lady of Shalott". I an getting two kinds of hearing in this stanza, one is the urn hearing sounds of the non world and two human hearing real world hearing. Again he says "Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:" Here he is just painting another picture of the non-world hearing but we as humans cannot hear. This is where we get the idea of the supernatural and the hearing of the non-world.
Common topics in this essay:
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Lady Shalott,
line poem,
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,
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Ode Grecian,
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melodies sweet unheard,
loose line,
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legend haunts,
mirror broken,
urn stanza,
melodies sweet,
read poem,
soft pipes,
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