Unlike the other poets we have studied, John Keats does not write to express political ideals or personify rebellion. Instead, Keats wrote about beauty and the deep contradictions that life entails – “the sadness of every joy.” Unfortunately with his early death, Keats only had a two year time frame where he wrote his masterpieces.
The first presented poem, “Ode to a Nightingale,” portrays the narrator’s yearning to be able to escape life and join the nightingale and its song. The poem has a very melancholy tone given the speaker’s wants of escaping his life. Although borderline depressing, the ode offers vivid imagery of the outdoors and celebrations of the nightingale’s song. This expression of beauty fits well with the Romanticist movement. The resolution of the poem that the narrator no longer knew whether this was a dream or reality, offers the meaning of the poem: That everything in this world is temporary.
The second poem, “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” is an amazing poem. The narrator comes upon a couple urns that all have pictures on them. He thinks to himself that these pictures never grow old but on the other hand never get to experience anything. For example, the lovers in the woods are stopped in time and they always get to be together but on the sad side of things, they never really get to experience their love. This poem epitomizes Keat’s writing about the deep contradictions in life. On one hand, these beautiful paintings on the urns are joyful for what they portray, but sad because they are really only paintings.
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