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Ode On A Grecian Urn Analysis

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In both poems Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale, Romantic poet John Keats narrates a state of envious longing for the immortal nature of his subjects, visualizing the idyllic, beautiful world that each encapsulates, thus offering him a form of escapism. This fancying forms a connection that immortality is beautiful compared to human mortality, with both poems realizing that this ideal world is unrealistic to be apart of. But, these poems differ in how the narrator views this immortal world. In Grecian Urn, the narrator admires the lively drawings on the urn, but is able to come back to reality experiencing that there is happiness, or truth, in the beautiful art that was witnessed. Nightingale shows more of a desperation to join …show more content…

Nightingale’s second stanza focuses heavily on imagery regarding the wine the narrator drinks. Keats characterizes the wine using images of nature, with the wine tasting “Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene”. The Hippocrene was a sacred site of Muses in greek mythology, alluding to its beauty and therefore the wine that the narrator drinks as tasting “beautiful”. He also describes the Nightingale’s immortal world as being “Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,”. Keats uses the imagery of nature in the wine to parallel the beautiful nature of where he’s so desperate to go to, the Nightingale’s forest, hoping to “fade away into the forest dim.” But, in Ode on a Grecian Urn, Keats uses imagery to describes the beauty of human actions whilst in nature. He makes sure to emphasize that the scenery will always be frozen, with every scene being stuck and never changing. This is not negative though, as the lovers will never fall out of love, the musician will never stop their sweet melodies, and son on. The use of imagery on the urn will always show a happy moment at each scene, forever encapsulating the eternal beauty of human happiness for anyone to admire as the urn is immortal against time, and it is in this beauty that the narrator sees the

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