To Autumn ( John Keats) Flashcards
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”
personification = Autumn as calm, generous figure
• sibilance “season of mists…” = softness, dreamlike mood
• juxtaposition = “mists” (decay) vs “fruitfulness” (abundance) → tension between growth + decline
• tone = reverent, celebratory
Keats opens with a lush, sensuous portrayal of Autumn as abundant yet transient—both life-giving and fading.
“Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun”
metaphor “bosom-friend” = deep intimacy with time + nature
• adjective “maturing” = ripeness + gentle ageing
• harmony between sun + season = natural inevitability
• sun = force of life + slow decay
Keats shows Autumn as inseparable from the process of time, working with it to bring about ripeness and eventual decline.
“To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees”
dynamic verb “bend” = weight of harvest → excess + richness
• sensory imagery = tactile, visual detail evokes fullness
• natural + domestic imagery “cottage-trees” = unity of home + earth
• pastoral idealism = life at its most fertile
Keats emphasises the overwhelming abundance of Autumn, where nature’s generosity begins to tip into decline.
Sitting careless on a granary floor”
personification = Autumn as feminine, resting
• adjective “careless” = unhurried, contented stillness
• post-harvest image = moment of satisfied calm
Keats creates a soft, passive image of Autumn—at peace in its work, unbothered by what’s to come.
“Drows’d with the fume of poppies”
• verb “drows’d” = lethargy, dream-state → suspended consciousness
• “fume of poppies” = narcotic image → poppies = death, sleep, beauty
• sensory overload = intoxicating atmosphere
• tone = peaceful surrender
Keats explores the seductive stillness of Autumn, where life and death are blurred in a tranquil, opiate haze.
“Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.”
slow rhythm + repetition “hours by hours” = elongated time
• verb “watchest” = passive observer of slow decline
• “oozings” = tactile decay → richness slipping away
• tone = meditative, reflective
Keats portrays Autumn as a quiet witness to nature’s fading pulse, honouring the slow passage into death.
“Where are the songs of spring?”
rhetorical question = shift in tone → introduces melancholy
• absence of spring = loss of vitality, youthful joy
• reflective voice = emotional maturity
• yearning for rebirth even as death approaches
Keats openly acknowledges the loss that comes with Autumn, reminding us that beauty always holds absence within it.
“Wailful choir the small gnats mourn”
• oxymoron “wailful choir” = sorrow made musical
• personification “gnats mourn” = death ritual in nature
• auditory imagery = harmony in grief
• natural elegy = insects as mourners of the season’s end
Keats transforms the sounds of death into something poetic—finding beauty in sorrow and honour in natural decline.
“And gathering swallows twitter in the skies”
“gathering” = migration → preparation for departure
• birds = classical symbol of time passing + change
• “twitter” = fading sound, gentle end-note
• visual imagery = movement, transition
Keats ends with a forward-facing image—suggesting that endings are temporary in nature’s eternal cycle.
Title: To Autumn
To” = direct address → personification, ode form
• Autumn = final season → ripeness + decay
• title reflects intimacy, reverence
• seasonal metaphor = emotional and spiritual maturity
Keats titles the poem like a love letter—elevating Autumn to a muse worthy of praise for both its beauty and transience.
Structure & Form
ode = traditional form of praise → celebrates overlooked beauty
• 3 stanzas = beginning (ripeness), middle (pause), end (decline)
• iambic pentameter + varied rhyme = flowing, measured tone
• cyclical structure = mirrors natural rhythm of life and death
Context
Romantic poet → focus on nature, emotion, beauty, transience
• written in 1819 = final great ode, possibly a farewell to poetry
• Keats facing illness + mortality → poem as acceptance of death
• rural England = landscape of inspiration
Themes
Transience + mortality
• Nature’s beauty + decay
• Time + transformation
• Acceptance of loss
• Harmony between life and death
