To Autumn

TO AUTUMN complete

FINAL ACTIVITY
How does To Autumn differ from the other poems you have studied?
There is no narrative voice and in contrast with all his other poems there is no desire to escape reality, he embraces, accepts it, moreover there is no love story between characters it is a pure interaction with nature.
How do I communicate a sense of warmth?
Through the vivid and vast images and with the creation of the autumn atmosphere, furthermore the words and sibilances that Keats uses have soft sounds that help build the sense of warmth.
How do I use language to reflect the passage of time and a sense of an ever-changing world in this poem?

With the cycle of life compared in unison with the ever changing seasons which are always repeating themselves in its pattern, even though summer finished and autumn is present now, summer will eventually come again after winter.

POEM ACTIVITY

Mother says not to worry! 

Orange tears will resurface

as green fantasies

• Use of colours to describe emotions, feelings, scenes, compare them. 
• The Personification of Nature like Keats with Spring
• The cycle of life: LIFE AND DEATH, spring will eventually come again.

Gloden floor, let me through

Let mother's childern embrace you

• Nature becomes a personification of LIFE
• Personification of Mother Nature, we wrote it with a capital letter in order to create the idea of deity, as John Keats does with Spring.
• The idea of hope, comfort is present in both poems, its the idea that even though Autumn is here, Summer/Spring will eventually come again; "Autum (...) has its music too"
• The cycle of life: Spirng will come again

Beautiful Creatures! 

Where dost thou go?

Away, away! 

Ambar whispers are after you.

• The use of insects, which is typicall of spring (We used a butterfly in our verses whilst Keats used a bee, however in our poem you may interpret any kind of insect)
• The use of rhetorical questions to engage even more the reader with the speaker. Keats used them in the first verse of the first stanza "Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?" 
• Moreover the use of synesthetic images "Amber whispers" (sight with sound) versus Keat's "The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft" (colour and sound as well)

Ode on a Melancholy

ODE ON A MELANCHOLY complete
images done with Ana de Lezica

STRUCTURE

Stanza 1: What not to do. Not letting negative emotions control you.
Stanza 2: What to do: Embrace human life, experiences
Stanza 3: Paradox of pain and pleasure, these being connected and always as a jointed force.

IMAGES ON THE POEM

Stanza 1

       "Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd

By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine"

This image creates meaning in the poem since it alludes to various elements with negative connotation, such as suffering, pale skin, and poisonous plants. This manages to create a gloomy mood/tone. "Kiss'd" contrasts with the implicit knowledge that nightshade is poisonous; although the action seems to be sweet we, as readers, know this affection would be deadly. Furthermore, the allusion to Prosperine (the Greek goddess) is a characteristic of Romanticism and the fascination by mythology.

Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

A partner in your sorrow's mysteries

This image is meaningful since it creates a tension between what we feel as readers and what we are supposed to feel. Although the speaker indicates we should not feel gloomy "nor the death-moth be/Your mournful Psyche ", the dark tone and pessimistic language does make us feel this way. Furthermore, the death-moth is a symbol of death (not only because of the skull-like image on its head, but also because of its historical value: people in Ancient Greece believed our Psyche (mind and heart) left our body through a moth when we die). The reference to the moth and the owl is also serves as an example to state that nature is always referenced to in Keats' poems.

Stanza 2

But when the melancholy fit shall fall 
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud

We are able to see the strength and violence of the rain falling like melancholy being the gloomiest of spririts, hence being so empowering and strong, yet appealing to something so weak and soft like a weeping cloud.

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, 
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eye 

The image shows the tension between the lovers, how close yet far away they are from each other therefore how he has to “emprison” her because of her “rave” so the clashes are clearly seen: from the fact he has to force her to calm down and stay with him; to the feeling of love from her “Soft hand” and “peerless eyes”.

Stanza 3

                                                                                          

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;

And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

This image is very meaningful since it personifies Melancholy and Joy as a goddess and a god. It also depicts the conflicting relationship between these two deities: although they live in the same world, Joy tries to silence Melancholy. However, Melancholy is full of "Beauty", and the whole theme of the poem is how we must embrace both Joy and Melancholy since both are essential to the experience of life.

(...) aching Pleasure nigh,Turning to poison while bee-mouth sips:

This image is one of my personal favourites from the poem. The "aching Pleasure" is a perfect oxymoron that describes how painful pleasure can be, once again Keats highlights how our life is composed by contradictory and opposing emotions. Another interesting thing to notice is how Pleasure turns to poison once we taste it, since all sweet things (like nectar for bees) turn sour eventually, nothing is forever pure and good in our world. The comparison to the bee is interesting not only because our life experience is compared to nature like in many other instances, but also because it compares human beings to something so seemingly small and insignificant as a bee. This creates the impression that our life isn't really that different to a bee's life. We're both attracted by sweet nectar, and both of us can't help it turning into poison.

Ode on a Grecian Urn

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN

BETTER UNDERSTANDING

What elements of my poem do you think you understand more after completing the urn task?

It definitely helped me on the language for the simple reason of having to portray the images of the poem into the urn (drawing them), so it also helped me understand the images from it. Metaphors enhanced even more on the true understanding of the thoughts he put onto it; sounds had to be “translated” so it was not just images but synesthetic images (mixture of senses) being thoroughly analyzed (e.g Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter) giving as a sense of encouragement through them.

Has the urn task raised any questions or doubt...

What descriptions or images in the poem of the urn are actually true?

...which are just a mere product of his imagination?

The Ode…

• Ir presents a lot of ambivalence regarding emotions there is a clash of encounter thought. We can see glimpses of criticism to nature not present in his other odes.
• Still images appear to be dynamic
• Idolisation of the images depicted on the urn
• Poem revolves around the idea of Life an Death, as well as immortality.

What skills were important for you to use in order to complete the task successfully? 

Team work
Efficient communication
Dividing task
Patience
Listening
Time management 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI (complete)

BALLADS

The word Ballad is of French provenance. It is a type of poetry which was basically used in dance songs in the ancient France. Later on, during the late 16th and 17th century, it spread over the majority of European nations.

 

What do I expect from a poetic ballad?

I expect it to be a plot-dirven song, a telling of a story thus a lot of emphasis on the description of the situation the poet is depicting. Moreover a abab rhythm.

RYHTM AND METER

Meter is the rhythm of a ballad. It describes where the emphasis is placed--what words are emphasized, and what words aren't. Almost all ballads have verses consisting of four or six lines, this poem having four; using one of two basic Meters: 4-3-4-3 or 4-4-4-4.

John Keats's Belle Dame poem is a ballad following everything a ballad should have, yet he did change the last verse of each stanza, making it shorter consequently slowing down the reading and by altering the pace he makes an emphasis on these last verses which all tend to have a negative conclusion "And no birds sing". Hereafter even though it is considered a Ballad it does not follow the expected scheme.

WATERHOUSE

Biography

John William Waterhouse was born in April 6, 1849 in Rome, Italy; nevertheless he did return to England during the 1850s. He was a painter like his fathe, he normally used historical and literary subjects, also he painted genre scenes. Moreover some pictures based upon literature and mythology (Miranda, Tristram and Isolde). One of his final works was The Enchanted Garden, left unfinished on his easel at his death, and now in the collection of the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Liverpool. Most of the work he did were exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Society of British Artist and the Dudley Gallery. Despite suffering from increasing frailty during the final decade of his life, Waterhouse continued painting until his death from cancer in 1917.

His painting reflecting the poem

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Waterhouse

The painting accurately reflects mood thorugh the colours it presents, also used in the poem by john keats, generally dark colours except for the Belle Dame dress, wich depsite not being very bright, the contrast it has draws attention to her also enhaced by the fact that the knight is wearing a metal armour which gives the feeling of him being foreign to the sitation, not merged with the nature's picture we are presented with as an overall. Furthermore the emotional intensity it has is unique, created just by the expression in their eyes or the way she is grabing him, making him lean towards her. In overall clearly tranmitting the idea of love

Different version…

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Artist: Henry Meynell Rheam (1901)

This version is a painting that presents more cold colours: the blue the brown, also presenting a wider variety whereas Waterhouse presents a excess of green, which somehow sticks to John Keats devotion to Nature. Which is why the second version presents what we could call as a 'dead' Nature, trees are not blossomed, there is no grass, scarcely some flowers; contrary to the first one were 'living' Nature can be found everywhere in the painting making it more vivid, appealing and beautiful following the schemes of a Romanticism.

Furthermore we can also see a difference in the relationship of the characters in the paintings, Rheam presets a distant relationship were La Belle Dame is standing looking somewhere else other than to the Knight who appears to be in agony on the floor looking at her; In Waterhouse scene, they both appear together, there is contact between them and there is a cleat 'possession' from la Belle Dame involving the Knight in some cloth around his neck when on Rhean version her cloth has peak form which depicts some aggression.

The Darkness present on the poem is very differently faced, Waterhouse clearly makes use of the colours whilst Rheam uses the physical language of the characters both achieving the aim yet having a different affect on the overall production.

Poems

SECTION 3
ODES

An Ode in poetry is a lyric peom, typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion. “Ode” comes from the Greek aeidein, meaning to sing or chant so it is normally meant to be sang, however in Romanticism this did not happen.

• Ode to Psyche “O Goddess! Hear these tuneless numbers, wrung By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear”
• Ode to a Nightingale “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains”
• Ode on Grecian Urn“Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time”
• Ode on Indolence “One morn before me were three figures seen”
• Ode on Melancholy “No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist”

Themes: Beauty, death (suffer), time (effects), mortality.

Beauty: Ode on a Grecian Urn
“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on”

Death: On death 

“Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, / And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?”

Time: —

Mortality: Ode to a Nightingale

SYNEASTHETIC IMAGES

Synaesthetic Images are combination of images were different senses either touch, smell, sight, hearing or taste and are used at the same time. The functions they have in the poems are those of not only appealing to one sense but many, when normally this doesn’t happen, thus inducing dissimilar happenings.
Example: To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill

POETIC BALLADA Ballad is normally a song/poem that tends to have a romantic character with a recurrent melody, hence it has short stanzas and usually adapted for singing. They are poems that tell a story. They are considered to be a form of narrative poetry and often used in songs as they have a very musical quality to them.

READING LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI done with Dana Spinadel

Context

SECTION 2

SYMBOLICAL IMAGE

French Revolution
1789

“Men and women form a mound around a post in the streets of a city on the right of this painting. A tattered tricolour flag (of black, yellow, and red) is at the top, and beside this flag, a man stands with a paper in his hand. A man on his horse (on the left of the painting) is among the crowd at the base of the mound, and a dog campers just in front of his steed. The crowd bears swords, pikes, and guns affixed with bayonets. One of the women at the base of the mound cradles a baby, while two women and an old man grieve over a dead youth in their arms. The blue sky is overcast with grey smoke.”
This painting symbolizes something really important in Romantic period which is the idea of nationalism, which became a central theme of Romantic art and political philosophy. Its nature changed dramatically with the rise of Napoleon. This is because before his rise to power changed the view of what nationalism actually was. Before his rise to power, nationalism was inspirational to movements in other nations, but as the French Republic became Napoleon’s Empire he became not the inspiration for nationalism but the object of its struggle.
Beginning and end of the period in literature: last years of the 18thcentury and the first decades of the 19th .

HISTORICAL EVENT ON THE ROMANTIC ERA

Storming of the Bastille and arrest of the Governor
M. de Launay, July 14, 1789

French Revolution: Before the revolution, poems and literature were generally written about aristocrats and clergy, and rarely about the working man. However, when roles in society started to shift as a result to the French Revolution, this changed. Poets such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Shelley started to write works for an about the working man, therefore pieces that common man could relate to: such as individualism and nationalism. Based on what Chirstensen used to believe, the Romantic Movement influenced by the revolution can be seen as a revolt of a group of contemporary poets who wrote as they individually pleased, without following any principles except those of individualism and revolt. 


KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM

• Imagination and emotion are more important than reason and formal rules
• Reliance on “natural” feelings are valued over controlled, rationality.
• Love of nature, respect for primitivism, and a valuing of the common man
• Nature = divine revelation = creative process
• There was an interest in Medieval past and the exotic
• There was an allure of rebellion and revolution (individualism and freedom from oppression)
• Introspection and melancholy were significant ideas

LIVING RECREATION OF ROMANTICISM PAINTING

Painting from Romanticism vs. Contemporary imitation
"Anna Razumovskaya".

LORD BYRON

Lord Byron and John Keats had a bad relationship as they both disliked each others work, this had to do significantly with the fact that they belonged to different social classes and had different interests and ideals. Byron disliked Keats poetry on an aesthetic level and Keats felt the same way about Byron’s work as he considered it overrated, slavish and unoriginal. Apart from this, Keats felt envious about Byron’s success as he was always struggling with money and Byron was well accommodated as he belonged to the high classes of France.

Biography

SECTION 1

JOHN KEATS
London            Rome
31/10/1795 - 23/2/1821
English Poet

TIMELINE

Oct 31, 1795: John Keats Born in London

1802: Brother Dies

1803: Starts School in Enfield, England

Apr 16, 1804: Father Dies

1805: Mother Disappears, abandons the family

1809: Mother Returns

Mar 1810: Mother Dies of tuberculosis

1811: Leaves School

1815: Starts Medical School and privately begins to write poetry

Oct 1816: Becomes Serious About Poetry

Dec 1816: Leaves Medicine to focus on poetry

Mar 3, 1817: First Poems Published, a volume entitled “Poems”

Jul 1818: Six week walking tour of England and Scotland with his friend, Charles Brown

Nov 28, 1818: Finishes Endymion, his first major long poem

Dec 1, 1818: Brother Dies of tuberculosis

1819: Meets Fanny Brawne, his neighbor and writes many of his best poems: The Odes of 1819: Ode on Indolence, Ode to Psyche, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode on Melancholy, battles depression and fights tuberculosis

Feb 3, 1820: Tuberculosis Appears, Fanny nurses him

Jul 1820: Final Poems Published, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other poems

Sep 17, 1820: Sails for Italy (without Fanny) as the English winter will not help the health of his lungs, the doctor says he needs the sea to help him stay alive more time

Feb 23, 1821: John Keats dies in his trip and is buried in the Protestant cemetery. Percy Bysshe Shelley, a friend of his, writes a poem as an elegy for him, Adonais

1838: His last poem “Bright Star” is officially published

FANNY BRAWNE                                                             

Fanny Brawne
9/8/1800 - 4/12/1865

Why was Fanny important in John Keats' life?

A reason why Fanny Brawne may have been important in John’s life is the fact that they met after John Keats’ brother died, hereafter, she must have been a great support for him through that time of sorrow. Moreover, he did write many of his best works during the year they were together. Most of his poems are related to her, and even though they were apart in his last days of life she was always present to him.

Letter were Keats declares his Love for her…

"The morning is the only proper time for me to write to a beautiful girl whom I love so much”

CHARLES BROWN
Who was Charles Brown?

They met in the late summer of 1817, Keats was twenty-one, and Brown thirty. They shared together a trip to Europe and they visited Scotland together. When Keats’ brother died, he moved into Brown’s half of Wentworth Place, taking the front parlor, where he lived for seventeen months. This was important in his life as this way he met Brown’s neighbor Fanny, the woman he fell in love with and got engaged to. Brown collaborated with Keats play, Otho the Great. He helped Keats and took care of him during his illness (tuberculosis) and sent letters to him in his death bed.Last 3 sentences from John Keats' letter to Charles Brown on the 30th November 1920...

“Write to George as soon as you receive this, and tell him how I am, as far as you can guess; - and also a note to my sister - who walks about my imagination like a ghost - she is so like Tom. I can scarcely bid you good bye even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow.”