ODE TO AUTUMN

 Did you know:  ODE TO AUTUMN is Keats's the last of his evergreen lyrics. This ode is written in 1819, was inspired by a quiet walk through the stubble-fields around Winchester. 

1. CONSIDER ON KEATS'S TREATMENT OF THEMES OF BEAUTY AND MUTABILITY IN THE POEMS PRESCRIBED FOR YOU.

 Keats's poetry is a remarkable example of Beauty and Mutability. Keats begans his poetic life as a worshiper of beauty and sensuousness. Word, colour and beauty is a significant sign to his poetry. ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE illustrates Keats's treatment of Beauty and Mutability.The bird nightingale has shown it's beauty. Beauty, like all other things, is immortal. 

                 "Thou wast not born for death , immortal Bird!

                    No hungry generations tread thee down "

Keats have also shown the evergreen ability of humans to respond to beauty. The beauty as represented by the nightingale is set off by the mutability of this world which is full of  "the weariness, the fever and fret and 

                   ".........Where men sit and hear each other groan ,

                    Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hair"

In ODE ON A GRECIAN URN Keats balances Beauty with Mutability. The changeless life in art with the changeful life on earth.

ODE TO AUTUMN discusses the beauty that is true. Here the poet finds that the beauty of autumn is more than the beauty of spring. So he says 

                   "Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 

                   Think not of them , thou hast thy music too--"

Thus we may concluded that those are the treatment of themes of Beauty and Mutability in the poems of Keats.

2. HOW AUTUMN IS PERSONIFIED IN "ODE TO AUTUMN".

Personifying an object means figuratively describing it with human traits in order to craft a vivid image of the subject in reader's thought. 

Keats observes the beauty of autumn with a calm and rich tranquility. The three stanzas of the show a gradual rise of thoughts. The poet also presents autumn as a person. 

1st Stanza:

Here the poet shows autumn as the most closest friend of sun. Autumn also  viewed as a season itself, bringing all the fruits of the earth to maturity in readiness for harvesting.

                      "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

                        Close blosom-friend of the maturing sun;"

2nd Stanza 

Here autumn is personified as a woman, as a reaper, as a blender and as a cyder- presser. Autumn is personified as a harvester during the winnowing time. The season is personified as a gleaner who goes beside a river. Autumn is also personified with a reaper who is inducing in the heavy necrotic scent of poppies. The season is also personified as a cyder-presser. Like a watcher, is waiting patiently by a cyder press for the final trickles of juice from the crushed apples. 

                         " Or by a cyder- press, with patient look,

                         Thou watches the last oozing hours by hours"

3rd Stanza:

Here autumn is personified as an unhappy man as he is deprived of the beauty of spring. Though autumn has its own songs. 

            Here the personified figure of Autumn is replaced by concrete images of life,unaffected by any thought of dead. 

3.DISCUSS ABOUT THE SONGS OF AUTUMN IN THE POEM  'ODE TO AUTUMN' 

Spring is the season of beauty. It is distinguished by the sweet songs of various birds. On the other hand , autumn is conspicuous by the total absence of these songs. But the poet represents that Autumn has its characteristic music. The sounds of autumn are heard in the evenings. In the evening , the clouds tinged with the colour of the sunset and casting a rosy hue on the harvested fields. In this exquisite atmosphere one hears the sound of small gnats ,the loud bleat of full grown lamb, the grasshoppers, the red breast (Robin) and the Swallows.

                 " Then in a wilful choir the small gnats mourn 

                      Among the river sallows, brone aloft 

                      Or sinking the light wind lives or dies;

               And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn 

                 ..................................... Swallows twitter in a skies"

This lines also personified embody Keats's concept of beauty. To Keats "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." He is satisfied with the music of autumn has.

4. CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF THE POEM ODE TO AUTUMN.

Critical Appreciation means evaluating and analyzing a poem to better understand it. ODE TO AUTUMN is the last ode of John Keats. It is the most perfect ode of Keats.

 It consists of three stanzas. It gives us a clear description of an English autumn. The first stanza describes us sensuously marvelous pictures and convey to us the full ripeness of autumn. In the second stanza all characters are personifications of Autumn. The third stanza represents us the symphony of autumnal sounds. 

This is the most faultless of Keats's odes in point of construction. The beauty of autumn gives the poet a great sensuous appeal. His description of the different ripe and juicy fruits - grapes, apples, pumpkins, nuts-appeal to our senses of sight, smell and touch. The enjoyment of autumnal beauty is here disturbed by no romantic longing, no forbidding of winter, no looking before and after. Keats is a pictorial artist. He paints pictures with words with great meticulous care. The poem also shows Keats's love for nature. 

The poem also breathes the spirit of Greek poetry. It illustrates Keats's HELLENISM. His attitude to Nature is essentially Greek. It is full of genuine Hellenic spirit. Like an ancient Greek, he presents autumn as- a reaper, harvester, a gleaner or cider-presser. 

The stanzas differ from those of the other odes through use of eleven lines rather than ten, and have a couplet placed before the concluding line of each stanza. The rhyme of "To Autumn" follows a pattern of starting each stanza with an ABAB pattern which is followed by rhyme scheme of CDEDCCE in the first verse and CDECDDE in the second and third stanzas.