EXERCISES ABOUT " ODE ON A GRECIAN URN"

•1.       The poet is addressing an urn

2a. The three words are : bride, foster-child and Sylvan historian. The first two are related thanks the relationship between mother and daughter.

2b. There is a contradiction because is not possible that something that is real in the time, as the word "historian" describes something that is over the time as the words "quietness " and " silence".

2c. The words that can be connected with the word "sylvan" are: "flowery" and "wild ecstasy".

Here there is another contradiction because something full of flowers can be in the same time also wild.

2d. We can learn the urn represents the events of an old and Grecian urn. It represents scenes where there were a man and a women that were running and someone who was playing and singing. There is the question if they where mortal or immortal. It is possible that the urn comes from of a time that was near the ancient Greece where people believe and represents myths.

3a. The pipe sound and the speaking voice said to continue to sound, but it can better if they don't sound because so the reader can imagine more things.

3b. They can't change because are impressed on the urn, so they are immortal. The two lovers will be together forever, but they can't live their life together, they can't kiss or touch the other anymore.

4a. The words have the function to describe better  the scene.  Happy is repeated six times. For ever is repeated four times.

The happiness is used to show the representation of a determinate moment of the life, the eternal spring and the eternal youth. The urn shows that eternal and wonderful moment. It has a positive connotation because shows the happiness but it is also negative because the lovers can't live what will be after that moment.

4b. There is a contradiction: we can't understand if to be eternal on the urn is a positive or a negative thing.

5a.Here it is described a ceremony.

5b. The dominant atmosphere is solemn as if it will happen something of special and unusual. The reader is curious to know that will happen.

6a. The final message is that nothing can live forever. Only the art lives forever, but not the life.

6.b 3 The beauty and the truth are the elements that give a sense of art and a sense of the poem and the life.