Ode on Melancholy - John Keats Flashcards
What did Keats study to be?
A Doctor
How was tragedy prevalent in Keats life?
-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
How old was Keats when he died?
Aged 28 from Consumption
Why does Keats reference greek mythology frequently?
-trying to fit in with Oxbridge educated poets
What gen poet was Keats?
2nd
What are some of the themes within the poem?
-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
What is ‘lethe’ in stanza 1?
-River of oblivion in the Greek Underworld
What is significant about ‘No, no, go” in stanza 1?
-Drives advisory tone > make most of melancholy
-Repetition > emphasis on second no > desperation to reach out to the reader
-Imperative negative
What is significant about the plants “nightshade” and “wolfsbane” in stanza 1 being poisonous?
Who is “ Proserpine” and why is she referenced?
-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
Why does Keats use asyndetic listing in stanza 1?
-to explore how bountiful we experience these negative emotions > normalising
What is significant about “Your Mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl” in stanza 1?
-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
What is significant about “Psyche” in Stanza 1?
-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
What is significant about “And drown in the wakeful anguish of the soul”?
-Desperate sense of living her is all that remains - pessimism is stoic
What does Keats acknowledge in stanza 2?
-The inevitability of melancholy > co-exists with all areas of life
What is significant about the first line of stanza 2?
-Offers hope and console
-certainty that we all experience melancholy
-VOLTA
What is significant about “Weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all”?
-Ultimate paradox > Sadness as rejuvenating and enables new life to grow (symbolism for new emotion and experience)
-Weeping cloud suggests the heavy burdens
Why does Keats use lots of natural imagery in stanza 2?
-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
Why does Keats describe a “mistress” in stanza 2?
-Hints at his unsuccessful marriage with Fanny Braun due to a lack of money - plagues him
What is significant about “Beauty- Beauty that must die;” in stanza 3?
-repetition of beauty - viewed as the pinnacle of happiness > can cause melancholy
-beauty is temporary much like melancholy
How are paradoxes shown in stanza 3?
-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
What is significant about the final three lines of the poem?
-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
How are emotions viewed in stanza 3?
-Fleeting and transient
What is the final question the Keats alludes to at the end of the poem?
is it better to die having known all emotion and tragedy?
OR
Is it Better to navigate melancholy and fulfil experience?
What is the metre within the poem?
- ## numerous variations to the Iambic pentameter > gnarled and difficult quality to them, suggesting the troubles of a melancholic mind.
What is the rhyme scheme within the poem?
-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 .
