To Autumn by John Keats Flashcards
‘Story’ + Message of ‘To Autumn’:
- Celebration of the natural world – hymn of praise ‘To Autumn’
- Presents Autumn as a time of celebration and harvest – the narrator delights in its sensual beauty
- Narrates the passing of Autumn
Tone of ‘To Autumn’:
- Awe + appreciation of autumn and its importance
- Appreciation of the power of nature and. Its beauty – particularly the season of autumn
Imagery of ‘To Autumn:
- The speaker uses imagery of fruits, flowers and nuts to describe how autumn fills everything with ripeness and sweetness
- Imagery of the dying away of plants and migration of animals – signifying the end of autumn and the soon beginning of winter
What is Keats part of?
- Keats is generally classified as one of the Romantic poets
- Romanticism was a general artists movement (literature, music, the visual arts, etc.) which dominated European culture from the last part of the 18th century until the mid-19th century
Key aspects of the Romantics movement:
o a deep appreciation of the power and beauty of nature
o a recognition of the influence of the senses and of personal emotion
o an understanding of the deeper meaning of life
* All of these may be seen at work in Keats’ To Autumn which reflects on mankind’s relationship with a particular time of year
How was Keats inspired to write the poem?
- He wrote the poem inspired by a walk he had taken through the countryside; it is, therefore, a highly personal response
John Keats context:
- Keats initially trained as a surgeon but gave it up to write poetry.
- Six months after completing To Autumn, he experienced the first signs of the tuberculosis that would end his life.
- In the poem it is almost as though the medically trained poet has understood that his life will soon end and he is preparing himself for death
- Keats died in 1821 aged just 25.
- Despite his short life, Keats has had a major impact on poetry and is regarded as one of the most important poets in literary history
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” - 1sts stanza
- poet is addressing autumn directly - apostrophe (rhetorical form of address)
- lavish, sensuous imagery – reflected by sound as well as meaning – long vowels + consonant clusters
“Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; / Conspiring with him how to load and bless” - 1st stanza
- season of autumn usually associated with life coming to an end – but in first stanza Keats paints a picture of nature being in its prime
- visualising season of autumn as a woman
- Autumn shares a connection with the sun dimming (maturing) into the winter months
- However, they are old friends, scheming ways to make the season’s fruit ripen well and abundantly
- “maturing” as an active verb: it is the force that makes the crops ripen
- sun and the season are personified
Semantic fields of images of “excess”
- “fill”, “swell”, “plump”, “o’er brimmed” - 1st stanza
- semantic field of abundance
- Keat introduces ideas of excess in 1st stanza – his musing starts at point death begins. Just beyond the prime
- Keats was preparing for his premature deaths as if he’d reached his ripeness as a poet before his time
“And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; / To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells” - 1st stanza
- larger fruits “gourd” and smaller nuts “hazels” have fattened with “kernel” – now at peak of ripeness
- see effect of early autumn in flowers
“Until they think warm days will never cease, / For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.” - 1st stanza
- early Autumn
- surfeit of nature introducing first subtle note of caution
- caution created through imagined overconfidence of bees who image their “warm days will never cease”
- long vowel sounds add to rich sensual imagery
- “Until they think warm days will never cease.” – subtly sinister, in previous line Keats paints fairly standard picture of summer tranquillity (bees pollination flowers)
- suggests that the warm days will cease by stating that the bees “think” they will never cease
“Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find / Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,” - 2nd stanza
- personification is of a woman sitting sleepily in a granary
- images of lethargy jump out at you – Autumn described as sitting careless
- could be quite innocuous and peaceful but lack of vitality may also signal something morbid
- develop ambiguity further – meaning of “careless” is without a worry – suggesting something positive + youthful, carefree attitude
- second meaning is negligent suggesting thoughtlessness and wastefulness
“And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep / Steady thy laden head across a brook;” - 2nd stanza
- personification of Autumn continues
- “gleaner” was a peasant in the village who went the the fields at harvest time to collect what was left by farmers – leaving corner of field un-reaped for gleaners ta city was customary form of charity in England at the time
“Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, / Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours” - 2nd stanza
- she is patiently waiting by a “cyder-press”
- cider made from overripe apples so fruit no longer at best and slightly overdone (past eating)
- “oozings” – onomatopoeia – suggests final ebb of life, stretched out + long vowels
- contributes to theme of excess and anticipation that the future will be less happy than the past
- long vowels in repetition of “hours” also fits slow pace of proceeding lines – maintains feeling of lethargy
“Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?” + “Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—” - 3rd stanza
- poet advising autumn not to mourn loss of spring
- Keats almost feverish with doubt emphasised with the “Ay”
- obisunt – poet poses questions to spring so he is able to dismiss them – challenging season to provide evidence of its worthwhileness whilst also reassuring autumn that it is at least as admirable – finds solace in the unique beauty of autumn itself
- last stanza opens in an interrogative mood, questioning where spring has gone or maybe when will it return
- Spring links to life and renewal, while the previous stanza anticipated death
- rhythmic, almost energetic ‘songs of Spring’, changing the mood and pace after the lethargy that went before
“While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, / And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;” - 3rd stanza
- late autumn – sky is becoming cloudy
- suggestion of death “soft-dying day” - fleeting ends of the day, first explicit reference to death
- “dying” couched with the word “soft”
- pace is slow and soothing as if the season and the evening is comforting him
- not only is day ending but also the year
- fields are now “stubble plains” – lack of abundance after harvest contrast to start of first poem
- “rosy hue” – image of sun-setting – contradiction as “rosy hue” indicates to the way a person’s cheeks might be flushed with life but also signal to beginning of descent into winter
“Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
- said “wailing” of gnats– insects which comes out in the evening by the riverbanks
- in accord with season of autumn linking the opposites of summer and winter
“And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; / Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft” - 3rd stanza
- lamps as fully grown is an oxymoron as lambs are sheep when they are fully grown
- could be positive implying near completion of the season + life’s maturity
- uses sound to show change in seasons
- implies Keats’ desire to cling to ideas of summer denying the lambs have matured or that his own poetry-writing has reached its finality
- lamb is symbol of innocence – something that Keats may have wanted to cling on to – could imply his instinctive need to deny his impending death
“And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”
- in Winter “swallows” gather in crowds in preparation of their migration to warmer climates in south
- left with sound of these birds gathering in skies – as surplus of warmth + light + food are at an end
regular alternative rhymes + slow pace + iambic pentametre
nature is organised not chaotic – it’s carefully managed
Ode to Autumn
highlighting + praising the time of year
3 stanzas
- 3 different aspects of the season: its fruitfulness, its labour and its ultimate decline
- Through the stanzas there is a progression from early autumn to mid-autumn and then to the heralding of winter
