John Keats' "To Autumn"
John Keats once said about Lord Byron, "He describes what he sees - I describe what I imagine, mine is the hardest task." "To Autumn" is evidence of his way of thinking, as the poem is a vivid, lyrical portrayal of the English autumn, as he imagined it. The poem is written on a very literal level. It can be examined as a whole work yet each stanza can also be examined individually as a separate phase of autumn. In "To Autumn" John Keats uses vivid language and sharp contrasts in his lyrical description of the phases of a very transitional season, autumn. As a whole, the poem is "a lyrical description of autumn in terms of certain objects, processes, and events associated with that season, or at least with specific aspects of that season" (Moser). The poem celebrates autumn as a season of abundance, a season of reflection, a season of preparation for the winter, and a season worthy of admiration with comparison to what Romantic poetry often focuses upon - the spring. The poem utilizes many tactile words and phrases, as well as visual and auditory terms. Keats uses terms such as "mellow," "plump," "clammy," "mists," "sun," "moss'd cottage trees, ""wailful," and "loud bleat" (Keats 872). Through these images and
" In this stanza, the richness of the beginning of autumn seems as though it "will never cease" (Keats 872). Several phrases emphasize this gradual slowing and perhaps signify the impending winter and the dying of the things from the previous stanza. Onomatopoeia and alliteration are exemplified in the following line, "Thy hair soft lifted by the winnowing wind" (Keats 872). He speaks of "mellow fruitfulness" and "fruit with ripeness. He says, "While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day" (Keats 872). In three simple stanzas, Keats takes the reader on a vivid journey from autumn's abundant life to its fading death. Keats mentions in numerous lines, the fruit of the beginning of autumn. He mentions the "rosy hue" of the end of the day and the whistling of the "redbreast. Notice the stark contrasts between life and death, beginning and end. He uses the phrases: "sitting careless," "patient look," and "oozings hours by hours" (Keats 872). He says, "Where are the songs of spring" (Keats 872)? Although it is the end of autumn and almost winter, there is no doubt that he thinks it is beautiful nonetheless. In the first stanza, Keats speaks of the beginning of autumn when everything is bursting with life and it seems the summer has poured over into the autumn. According to Arnold Davenport, "The central element in the concept of Autumn created by the poem is that the season is a boundary, a space between two opposite conditions, a moment of poise when one movement culminates and the succeeding movement has scarcely begun" (96). Augmentative meanings refer to the process of growth while terminative meanings refer to completion or endings of any sort.
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