Ekphrasis: writing that comments upon another art form, for instance a poem about a photograph or a novel about a film. Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a prime example of this type of writing, since the entire poem concerns the appearance and meaning of an ancient piece of pottery.
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunt about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
The Poet Speaks of Art
The road runs both ways, of course, and writers turn as well to paintings for their inspiration. In the small anthology of poems and paintings exhibited here, some interesting questions arise as we contemplate the relationship between the poem and the picture. Is the poem simply an objective verbal description of the work of art, or does the poet make conclusions about what the painting means? Could you reconstruct the painting from the poem without actually seeing it? Why does the poet dwell on some features of the the painting and ignore other aspects of the picture? Do you agree with the meaning the poet "reads" in the painting, or do you think the writer misreads it or warps the scene depicted to personal ends?
To view examples, go to this link:
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunt about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
The Poet Speaks of Art
Introductory Remarks by Harry Rusche on Poets and Paintings
Ever since the Roman poet Horace set down in his Ars Poetica (c. 13 BC) the dictum "ut pictura poesis"--"as is painting, so is poetry"--the two arts have been wedded in the critical mind. Poets and painters sometimes turn to one another for inspiration, and the dialogue has been mutually beneficial. Painters and illustrators have often been inspired by literature, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The critic Richard Altick says, for example, that between 1760 and 1900 there existed around 2,300 paintings based on Shakespeare's plays alone. These Shakespeare paintings are only one-fifth of the 11,500 paintings on subjects and scenes from literature--and we are talking only about paintings done in England during those years! Sheer numbers indicate the influence of authors on artists. Listed in the section on additional readings are several books that discuss the relationships between art and literature.The road runs both ways, of course, and writers turn as well to paintings for their inspiration. In the small anthology of poems and paintings exhibited here, some interesting questions arise as we contemplate the relationship between the poem and the picture. Is the poem simply an objective verbal description of the work of art, or does the poet make conclusions about what the painting means? Could you reconstruct the painting from the poem without actually seeing it? Why does the poet dwell on some features of the the painting and ignore other aspects of the picture? Do you agree with the meaning the poet "reads" in the painting, or do you think the writer misreads it or warps the scene depicted to personal ends?
To view examples, go to this link:
(Do not do the assignment on this website. Read the examples provided only.)
I personally don't really care for Ekpharsic Poetry. I found it to be far too exaggerated and unnecessary. I find blunt, simplistic poetry more intriguing and exuberating. I also couldn't really translate the message Keats was trying to get across. I'm sure to others, this poem is heavenly and is powerful, and speaks to their inner essences, but as for myself, I personally don’t understand it. I feel illiterate and remedial reading it over and over again trying to force myself to understand it. I think for me, this is just one of those things I personally will never perceive correctly.
ReplyDeleteJohn Keats, who wrote the poem Ode to a Grecian Urn, was an English Romantic poet known for his characteristic odes and letters. While in life he was not a very popular writer, in death at the age of twenty five he became widely appreciated. This specific poem is what is considered an ekphrastic style of writing - because it is one art about another. Keats is directing the voice of the poem toward a Grecian Urn that has paintings of deities on it. In the poem, he never specifically says that he is talking to a piece of pottery, which adds almost a flare of mystery to the story. It makes you want to ask, “Who is he talking to? And why are they seemingly immortal?” Keats specifically focuses on the fact that the Urn is going to outlive everyone else, saying “When old age shall this generation waste, thou shalt remain…” This suggests that perhaps Keats struggles with mortality, and a warped sense of beauty.
ReplyDeleteI feel as if the poet is a verbal descrption of the work of art and the poet making a conclusion about the meaning of the painting. The poet interpreted what he felt the picture was trying to say. Although it may or may not be accurate, I think it could at least try and reconstrust what picture came to my mind while reading the poem. I think the poet dwells on some features of the work of art because the ones that he talked about are the ones that caught his eye and had some type of meaning. I do agree with the meaning the poet "reads"in the painting but I also feel as in the midst of "reading" the photo the poet uses his personal experiences to create a story line for the character or for the scene in the photo. Not everyone may get the same idea from a picture so saying that the poet misreads it isn't a factor of the matter.
ReplyDeleteThe poem, “Ode to a Grecian Urn” is very powerful. In the poem the speaker loses himself in the urn and regards the illustrations on it as part of their own world that will never change. He understands that it is a painting but he treats each image on the urn like they are alive and frozen in time. His world, in comparison, seems small and unimportant when he compares it to the world of the illustrations on the urn. He makes a comment on just about every image on the urn, some are nice, like when he talks about the man that is playfully chasing the girl he seemingly loves, others are depressing, like the scene where he talks about the cow being sacrificed, and each image he analyzes and writes about becomes more powerful when he points out to his readers that he is writing about a picture, and pictures are the same forever.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t personally like this poem but I liked his form of writing. He gave the picture a story and meaning that not many people would understand. In the beginning he is stuck on the frozen images in time, he is attached to the quietness and the amount of power that a motionless object could deliver. http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/keats/section4.rhtml
ReplyDeleteThis poem is very difficult to read but I think I can understand the concept of this poem. It sounds like it was written during the Romanticism period. For example Shakespeare would write in a rhythmic style, sonnet. Even though Keats was way before Shakespeare’s era, he inspired many poets to follow right behind him with the Ekphrastic poetry style. Keats poem is about the beauty he sees on the urn and describes what stories are happening in still-life. For example, one stanza that exemplifies still life is about a piper playing his unheard melodies to his lover. Keats explains that unheard melodies are far more saccharine than mortal melodies. Even though this piper may never kiss his lover, he knows that her beauty will never fade. Keats also makes an ode about the beauty of the Urn telling the future generations its lesson about the Urn and its beauty saying,
ReplyDelete“When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
I think to poet was trying to create and objective verbal description of the art work. Almost like creating a back story for it; getting us to look at the art deeper and more intrigued. I think the poet emphasize certain aspects of the painting for he found them important in creating an image. I was reading this link, and it gave me a bit of background knowledge on Ekpharsic Poetry and the history of it's origin. http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/notes-ekphrasis
ReplyDeleteI like how this poem seems to be about youth at first, but then you realize that it really is talking about the urn itself. He starts the poem speaking about wild revels, forests, nymphs, and gods. It turns into a comment on youth, how precious it is, and how the subject of the poem will live on, eternally young. You could say that he's talking about some immortal being, but if you really think about it, you realize that he's actually talking about the urn itself. The urn will remain unfaded, young looking for a thousand years. The urn won't change, and that's why after all the images of what's going on in the urn's painting, the poem ends with talking about unchanging youth. It's subtle and clever.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, the older style of rhythmic poetry is very apparent. The rhythm of the poem is rather different from the way we write and read poems in our modern age. It seems that the phrases in which rhyme with each other only occur until after a couple lines, instead of being directly after each other in lines or appearing every other line. For the poem meaning itself, it’s as if the picture on the urn is like a book that is missing pages and Keats was trying to put the pages together. Instead of just describing the urn, he looked into what the true depth of the poem is. In the first stanza, he’s questioning this, he’s questioning the truth behind the marble design. And, in the next stanzas, he would actually expand on this ideal. He began to explore the truth behind it, instead of just describing a simple design/
ReplyDeleteLink: http://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/best/ekphrasis_(ecphrasis)
Keats took this beautiful picture and made a poem out of it. In the first stanza of the poem he didn’t know whether it was gods or goddesses, mortals or both. He was asking questions in the story trying to figure out if everything he was writing went together. He went into depth about the picture. The poem makes conclusion about what the painting means. No I would need to see the photo to reconstruct the poem because the poem is based off of it and you could see what he is writing about. I do agree because the poem flows beautifully with the photograph. The poet goes heads on with the poem.
ReplyDeleteThis poem was pretty interesting. I never really thought of writing a poem about an object such as an urn, but Keats made it work. While reading the poem, I heard a sort of story. It wasn't a fictional story but rather a recount of things that have happened under some ruler. A queen maybe, and t goes into talking about some things that took place during the leadership. As the poem comes to a close, I thought that it went back from describing the scene on the object, to describing the object itself. Then you realize all along, that he was actually talking about the urn the whole time. It was kind of like... "poetry inception". It was cool.
ReplyDeleteThe rhythm of the poem made it flow and easy to read which was nice because the language is older and can stump some people. Personally, I grasped it, I think. It was almost like how some people write response poems to paintings or sculptures, this was a response to the urn. Beautifully written.
John Keats is hailed as the archetype of the 19th century English Romantic Poet. His poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" exhibits the intense emotion characteristic of Romantic poetry, giving legitimacy to this claim. An ekphrastic poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a literary representation of a visual piece of artwork. However Keats does more than simple describes the urn, he reacts to it. I think that this reaction is a necessity. Poetry relies on imagery, but behind that imagery there must be meaning, otherwise a poem is merely description lacking in substance. Although Keats' poem is somewhat inaccessible due to its esoteric language and phrases, the emotion conveyed is impossible to miss. Keats feels jealous of the lovers in the poem, always in the state of pursuit, which he deems to be the best part of any relationship. When reflecting of the sacrifice of the cow, he realizes the although change in life is inevitable, the picture on the urn will never change. Everything in life, and indeed, life itself, is fleeting. An urn outlasts our moments, and will likely outlast our lifespans. This is enough to send Keats into a state of panic, and he drags me there with him. Although on a whole the poem is difficult to understand, there are certain aphorisms within it that provide meaning. Among these are "heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter," and "beauty is truth, truth is beauty-that is all ye know on earth and all you need to know." Both lines refer to the mysterious and universal nature of beauty. It is difficult to ascertain the source of beauty, and even more difficult to recreate it, but beauty is a common language, much like art and music.
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty, it is hard for me to keep up with this poem because of what a great poem it is. There is so much that Keats has to say about this urn; this object that anyone else would think is a vase- like object that holds an incinerated dead person. But no, Keats projects this awesome object into one's head so a whole new meaning is given to it. He describes the figures on the urn and questions what they do and their surroundings and intentions. There is so much talent in this poem because I would probably only be able to think of at most two stanzas to write about that urn. It is admirable what a mind can take out of one object and describe in five stanzas.
ReplyDelete