ODE ON A GRECIAN URN

John Keats

1) The poet is addressing a urn.

2a) The poet addresses the urn as a unravished bride, foster-child and sylvan historian. The words which are synonyms are quietness and silence.

2b) The contradiction is that historian cannot be silent.

2c) The words "flowery", "leaf-fringed" and "wild" are connected with Sylvan; they are used to underline the nature, which is used as a background for the story.

2d) From the questions of the second part of the first stanza we can learn that:

•-      the location of the urn is in the Tempe and in the valleys of Arcady

•-      there are represented men similar to Gods, and some reluctant girls

•-      there is represented some musicians with pipes and timbrels

•-      they are as in a wild ecstasy, maybe they are doing a party

3a) The paradox of the second stanza regards heard and unheard melodies, that are songs with no tone. It seems impossible that unheard melodies could express concepts better than heard ones, because unheard melodies doesn't exist.

3b)

1. The two scenes are about a young man who cannot stop singing and a lover who is stuck in the moment when kissing the loved girl.
2. Both scenes cannot change because they are engraved in the urn, fixed; so they can't move.
3. The two lovers will be always stuck in the moment when kissing each other; on one hand it can be romantic to think they will always live the emotion that comes before the kiss, but on the other it is really bad not to manage to do it.

4a)

1. "Happy" refers to the characters and to the setting, and it is often used. "Ever/Forever" refers to the fact that they are fixed in the urn and they will be in that position and feeling the same emotions for the eternity.
2. Boughs have to be happy because they will be forever in Spring with all their leaves; the melodist has to be happy because he will play always new songs without exhausting; the lovers have to be happy because they will enjoy forever their love, they will be forever young and nice looking.
3. They have mostly positive connotations.

4b) I think the poet is in contradiction because in the second stanza he seems to feel suffer for the two lovers who cannot kiss each other, while in the third stanza he says that their love will be immortal, that they will be young and nice looking forever, and that they will always feel strong and beautiful emotions because of the moment they are living.

5a) In the fourth stanza it is described a sacrifice; the poet uses the device of questions, in order to make the reader aware of his doubts and to understand the situation, mainly the setting and the sense of the sacrifice.

5b) The dominant atmosphere is enigmatic because of the poet's questions.

6a)

- Brede, overwrought, dost tease us out of thought, beauty is Truth.

- From first stanza: Attic shape, forest branches.

- The function of art is to send messages and eternize it. The ode is about how art can do it.

6b) The paradox is about silent form to say things, like in the first stanza the unheard melodies, which are better than heard ones.

6c) "Cold" may refer to the fact that in the urn the stories and the characters are stuck like things are stuck in ice.

7a) The final message is summed up in the last line, that is "Beauty is Truth".

7b) Art is beautiful and true because it renders the essential elements of human experience.