Grecian Urn

Question 1

‘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:’

Answer 1

• poem establishes itself as ekphrasis
• direct address between speaker and personified urn
• triplet of metaphorical descriptions of urn - creates ambiguity
• duplexity of ‘still’ - ‘still’ in the sense it is inanimate, but also after all this time ‘still’ wedded to quietness
• sibilance encapsulates sense of quietness
• idea that the urn is better equipped to tell its story than poetry - contradicting Keats’ love of literature

Question 2

‘What leaf-fring’d 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?’

Answer 2

• line 5-10 entirely rhetorical questions - as though interrogation - ironic given he just described its quietness
• ^^ negative capability - to operate from a position of doubt
• repetition of ‘what’ symbolic - just as Keats will not get a clear answer about what is on urn, the reader will not get a clear message from this poem - must too interrogate poem for meaning

Question 3

‘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;’

Answer 3

• urn is paradoxical object - represents stillness and vitality
• arguably when Keats is most infatuated with urn - quiet quality represents ideal beauty which all art aspires to