Ode on Melancholy Essay Example

Ode on Melancholy Paper Keats gains inspiration from many sources, the most important of which is the natural world. Explore the varied poetic uses Keats makes of nature in the Ode on Melancholy and Ode to Autumn Keats refers to nature in many of his poems. The natural world and the human world are inspiring to him and he portrays both these ideas in the poem Ode on Melancholy. He describes nature and its beauty through descriptive language in this ode. In this ode nature present the joys in life as well its melancholic ways. Keats uses themes of mutability, nature and its course and synaesthesia. These inspirations Keats uses enable him to be a universally renowned poet as the themes give his poems individuality. Keats wrote during the Romantic period and observations and description of the natural world were very typical of writers in the period. Nature is shown in several forms throughout Ode on Melancholy and Ode to Autumn as Keats learns to accept the truth of life and all of its qualities and nature helps discover and highlight this. Ode to Melancholy begins with the descriptions of nature through the idea of suffering. Negative images are displayed, No, no telling you not to reject melancholy but learn to accept it. Poisonous plants are mentioned showing the idea of suicide, wolfs-bane and its poisonous wine suggests death and sickness through imagery of colour and the idea of pain. The first stanza urges you not to try and escape pain but to learn from it. Poison is referred to again in the final stanza in order to show Keats connection with the natural world. He refers to a bee sipping nectar, a very common and in fact pleasurable thing for a bee yet it is vastly turning into poison. We will write a custom essay sample on Ode on Melancholy specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Ode on Melancholy specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Ode on Melancholy specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer This use of synaesthesia of the bee-mouth is able to show how quickly joy and pleasure can turn into melancholy. Sometimes there are no warning signs. It is precisely the fact that joy will come to an end that makes the experience of joy such a ravishing one; the fact that beauty dies makes the experience of beauty sharper and more thrilling. However, there are many contrasts as beauty is represented but also taken away by melancholic imagery. Like a weeping cloud is a very significant simile as nature is represented negatively although it is a common action, rain. However, weeping represents the idea of sadness and grief. Rain is not generally a negative aspect of nature. The contrast to the weeping cloud is made when this rain is able to foster the droop-headed flowers showing melancholy is also nourishing like the rain which revives the drooping flowers. Here Keats has built up an extended metaphor. The rain is very significant as it also hides the green hill showing melancholy to cover up natures finer aspects. The colour imagery of green suggests fertility, beauty and aliveness; this is the contrast of joy and melancholy. Rain and sadness are able to hide natures beauties. This contrast is almost made in April shroud which has oxymoronic ideas as April is the month of natures renewal, a pleasant setting and shroud is a cloth used for death. This portrays the idea of the mutability of life. Sadness needs to be accepted in order to enjoy lifes pleasures. Nature is a source of melancholy and like some aspects of nature, such as rainbows and waves, melancholy is not always long lasting. It is meant to be temporary, as life has many emotions through the human world as well as the natural world. Ode on Melancholy Essay Example Ode on Melancholy Paper The differences highlighted between Ode to a nightingale and To Autumn is, their way of accepting is based on different concepts. To Autumn does so in a positive way whilst Ode to a Nightingale does not. To Autumn can be related to Ode on Melancholy; their ideas on life are similar. Ode on Melancholys theme is based on the idea that melancholy cannot be felt without feeling joy. Keats presents this through the view of Joy being unable to feel melancholy, save him whose strenuous tongue / Can burst Joys grape against his palate fine. The grape metaphorically presents the feeling of happiness and that it needs to burst and be fully tasted in order for melancholy to be completely felt or understood. To Autumn is similar in the sense that Keats understands that life and death come with each other, you cannot experience spring without experiencing the robin red breast in winter. To Autumn also makes the distinction between life and death and how they cannot be without each other when he says full-grown lamb. Lamb presents new birth and the idea of a full life ahead, whereas full-grown presents old and near death. We will write a custom essay sample on Ode on Melancholy specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Ode on Melancholy specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Ode on Melancholy specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer By Keats putting the two together he is suggesting that death cannot occur without life. Both Ode on Melancholy and To Autumn express the inability to have something without the other. There is however a distinct difference in the language used in both poems. Ode on Melancholy is very negative and filled with negative images whilst To Autumn is more positively generated and filled with positive descriptions. Throughout Ode on Melancholy Keats uses negative emotions, images and ideas. Such as Sorrows mysteries and drown. Sorrow presents depression, sadness and grief which promote a negative impression to the reader. Also the use of sibilance in Sorrows mysteries, also contributes to the negative feel as it creates an eerie and sinister atmosphere. Drown is particularly violent image of death creating fears and worry. This aura is created throughout the poem, other words such as weeping, droop-headed flowers and rich anger are also used. Weeping again creates sadness and a feeling of distress. Droop-headed flowers takes the negative imagery to a natural level droop-headed is the stance of a dead flower through which Keats is using death images on nature, whilst also creating an idea of the flower drooping its head in sadness. To Autumn on the other hand is filled with positive imagery and ideas such as, fruitfullness and ripeness. This gives the idea of fertility and birth, which are considered beautiful images as it is the impression of new life and the start of living. Again Keats continues this positivism through the poem, through words such as sound asleep, patient look and drowsed, these also creates positive images. Being sound asleep creates connotations of being relaxed and in a place of calm and serenity. Patient look creates the same type of aura, that life is calm and simple; full of neither patience not worry nor distress. It is clear that Ode on Melancholy is very negative and To Autumn is particularly positive in its presentation what also makes them similar is that Keats has created an image and run it through the entire poem without change but a continuous feel of the same emotion be it negative or positive. The way in which To Autumn stands out from the other odes is its outlook on life and death, and its ability to fully accept both from the offset. The other odes however have a begrudging ability to accept anything. To autumn is the only of the poems which does not have ten lines in its stanzas, it is as if the eleventh line is that extra bit of understanding and positivism, the extra space to be able to accept death. To Autumn is a far more inspirational and beautifully positive poem creating a placid, relaxed and loving view whilst the others tend to make us, the reader, feel down and miserable as they have a much more pessimistic view on life. 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