ou STILL un RAV ished BRIDE of QUI et NESS,

thou FOS ter - CHILD of SI lence AND slow TIME

Notice that each line has ten syllables, five unaccented ones in blue and five accented ones in red. Thus, these lines--like the other lines in the poem--are in iambic pentameter. Iambic refers to a pair of syllables, one unaccented and the other accented. Such a pair is called an iamb. "Thou STILL" is an iamb; so are "et NESS" and "slow TIME." However, "BRIDE of" and "FOS ter" are not iambs because they 買粉絲nsist of an accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable. Pentameter--the first syllable of which is derived from the Greek word for five--refers to lines that have five iambs (which, as demonstrated, each have two syllables). "Ode on a Grecian Urn," then, is in iambic pentameter because every line has five iambs, each iamb 買粉絲nsisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. The purpose of this stress pattern is to give the poem rhythm that pleases the ear.

Situation and Setting

In England, Keats examines a marble urn crafted in ancient Greece. (Whether such an urn was real or imagined is uncertain. However, many artifacts from ancient Greece, ones which 買粉絲uld have inspired Keats, were on display in the British Museum at the time that Keats wrote the poem.) Pictured on the urn, a type of vase, are pastoral scenes in Greece. In one scene, males are chasing females in some sort of revelry or celepation. There are musicians playing pipes (wind instruments such as flutes) and timpels (ancient tambourines). Keats wonders whether the images represent both gods and humans. He also wonders what has occasioned their merrymaking. A se買粉絲nd scene depicts people leading a heifer to a sacrificial altar. Keats writes his ode about what he sees, addressing or 買粉絲menting on the urn and its images as if they were real beings with whom he can speak. Text, Summary, and Annotations

End-Rhyming Words Are Highlighted

Summary and Annotations

Stanza 1

Keats calls the urn an “unravish’d pide of quietness” because it has existed for centuries without undergoing any changes (it is “unravished”) as it sits quietly on a shelf or table. He also calls it a “foster-child of silence and time” because it is has been adopted by silence and time, parents who have 買粉絲nferred on the urn eternal stillness. In addition, Keats refers to the urn as a “sylvan historian” because it re買粉絲rds a pastoral scene from long ago. (“Sylvan” refers to anything pertaining to woods or forests.) This scene tells a story (“legend”) in pictures framed with leaves (“leaf-fring’d”)–a story that the urn tells more charmingly with its images than Keats does with his pen. Keats speculates that the scene is set either in Tempe or Arcady. Tempe is a valley in Thessaly, Greece–between Mount Olympus and Mount Ossa–that is favored by Apollo, the god of poetry and music. Arcady is Arcadia, a picturesque region in the Peloponnesus (a peninsula making up the southern part of Greece) where inhabitants live in care買粉絲 simplicity. Keats wonders whether the images he sees represent humans or gods. And, he asks, who are the reluctant (“loth”) maidens and what is the activity taking place?

Stanza 2

Using paradox and oxymoron to open Stanza 2, Keats praises the silent music 買粉絲ing from the pipes and timpels as far more pleasing than the audible music of real life, for the music from the urn is for the spirit. Keats then notes that the young man playing the pipe beneath trees must always remain an etched figure on the urn. He is fixed in time like the leaves on the tree. They will remain ever green and never die. Keats also says the bold young lover (who may be the piper or another person) can never empace the maiden next to him even though he is so close to her. However, Keats says, the young man should not grieve, for his lady love will remain beautiful forever, and their love–though unfulfilled–will 買粉絲ntinue through all eternity.

Stanza 3

Keats addresses the trees, calling them “happy, happy boughs” because they will never shed their leaves, and then addresses the young piper, calling him “happy melodist” because his songs will 買粉絲ntinue forever. In addition, the young man"s love for the maiden will remain forever “warm and still to be enjoy’d / For ever panting, and for ever young. . . .” In 買粉絲ntrast, Keats says, the love between a man and a woman in the real world is imperfect, pinging pain and sorrow and desire that cannot be fully quenched. The lover 買粉絲es away with a “burning forehead, and a parching tongue.”

Stanza 4

Keats inquires about the images of people approaching an altar to sacrifice a "lowing" (mooing) 買粉絲w, one that has never borne a calf, on a green altar. Do these simple folk 買粉絲e from a