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Romantic Poetry flashcards > Ode on Melancholy - John Keats > Flashcards

Ode on Melancholy - John Keats Flashcards

1
Q

What did Keats study to be?

A

A Doctor

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2
Q

How was tragedy prevalent in Keats life?

A

-Lost his father at 8 years old
-lost his mother at 13 years old
-nursed his brother who was sick with TB and whom died
-Medical training meant he saw tragedy first hand x

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3
Q

How old was Keats when he died?

A

Aged 28 from Consumption

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4
Q

Why does Keats reference greek mythology frequently?

A

-trying to fit in with Oxbridge educated poets

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5
Q

What gen poet was Keats?

A

2nd

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6
Q

What are some of the themes within the poem?

A

-How to and not to deal with deep sadness > speaker becomes an advisor
-warns against intoxication and death to escape melancholy
-Melancholy should be embraced
-Link between pain and passion - good and bad - All beauty is tainted with a kind of poignant sadness
-uplifting and hopeful

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7
Q

What is ‘lethe’ in stanza 1?

A

-River of oblivion in the Greek Underworld

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8
Q

What is significant about ‘No, no, go” in stanza 1?

A

-Drives advisory tone > make most of melancholy
-Repetition > emphasis on second no > desperation to reach out to the reader
-Imperative negative

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9
Q

What is significant about the plants “nightshade” and “wolfsbane” in stanza 1 being poisonous?

A
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10
Q

Who is “ Proserpine” and why is she referenced?

A

-Persephone > spent 6 months in the underworld as Hade’s queen
-Symbolises how we experience periods of sadness and melancholy but it is not everlasting

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11
Q

Why does Keats use asyndetic listing in stanza 1?

A

-to explore how bountiful we experience these negative emotions > normalising

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12
Q

What is significant about “Your Mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl” in stanza 1?

A

-Elongated vowels
-Creates a sense of melancholy > creates this feeling to seem relentless and ongoing
-Drowsiness felt
-trying to represent the feeling to project his feelings

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13
Q

What is significant about “Psyche” in Stanza 1?

A

-Greek for soul
- Also the girl who searched for her lover Cupid> projects idea that humans are searching for these emotions but they are tainted

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14
Q

What is significant about “And drown in the wakeful anguish of the soul”?

A

-Desperate sense of living her is all that remains - pessimism is stoic

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15
Q

What does Keats acknowledge in stanza 2?

A

-The inevitability of melancholy > co-exists with all areas of life

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16
Q

What is significant about the first line of stanza 2?

A

-Offers hope and console
-certainty that we all experience melancholy
-VOLTA

17
Q

What is significant about “Weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all”?

A

-Ultimate paradox > Sadness as rejuvenating and enables new life to grow (symbolism for new emotion and experience)
-Weeping cloud suggests the heavy burdens

18
Q

Why does Keats use lots of natural imagery in stanza 2?

A

-Advice from Keats > Look to natural beauty or a lover and reconcile melancholy and beauty’s co-existence stoically
-Natural imagery - the paradox of melancholy > Nature gives us alternative methods to overcome melancholy

19
Q

Why does Keats describe a “mistress” in stanza 2?

A

-Hints at his unsuccessful marriage with Fanny Braun due to a lack of money - plagues him

20
Q

What is significant about “Beauty- Beauty that must die;” in stanza 3?

A

-repetition of beauty - viewed as the pinnacle of happiness > can cause melancholy
-beauty is temporary much like melancholy

21
Q

How are paradoxes shown in stanza 3?

A

-Beauty that dies
-Joy that leaves
-Pleasure that causes pain
- Shows how inextricably intertwined these experiences are
-Ideals live forever but feeling and experiences are temporary

22
Q

What is significant about the final three lines of the poem?

A

-Bittersweet ending > Keats suggests how you must prepare for what you feel
-Point of tension in the poem > His conclusion to his advice > Emotion experienced through paradoxes
-Poem is paradoxical cyclical

23
Q

How are emotions viewed in stanza 3?

A

-Fleeting and transient

24
Q

What is the final question the Keats alludes to at the end of the poem?

A

is it better to die having known all emotion and tragedy?
OR
Is it Better to navigate melancholy and fulfil experience?

25
Q

What is the metre within the poem?

A
  • ## numerous variations to the Iambic pentameter > gnarled and difficult quality to them, suggesting the troubles of a melancholic mind.
26
Q

What is the rhyme scheme within the poem?

A

-Elaborate rhyme scheme > beauty
-beauty at heart of the poem’s subject matter > relationship between beauty and melancholy.
-Stanza 1 > ABABCDECDE >sound of intoxication—which the speaker warns against.
- Stanza 2 > ABABCDECDE> nature’s beauty.
-Stanza 3>ABABCDEDCE > closeness of beauty and melancholy .

Romantic Poetry flashcards (17 decks)

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