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  • Essay / Understanding the poem “Autumn” by John Keats

    John Keats' poem "To Autumn" is an ode that is defined as "a lyric poem of some length, usually serious or meditative in nature and having a high style and formal stanza structure." “To Autumn” has many meanings because Keats speaks of autumn as if it were a human being. It expresses autumn in a way that makes it beautiful and full of fecundity. Keats uses fluid methods that help the reader develop images of fall as more than just a season. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Throughout the poem, the theme resembles a nature theme, but in the first two lines, Keats creates images of humans and nature interacting. For example, in the first stanza, the reader is given the image of autumn working with the sun to ripen and grow crops as humans would before the harvest. In the phrase "and more, bloom later for the bees, until they think the hot days will never cease" Keats lets us know that even though the bees think the summer will last forever if they fly around flowers, this really won't be the case. . As a poet, John Keats is famous for his odes. These poems are addressed to a person or object that cannot respond. In “To Autumn,” this person or object would be autumn. The rhyming meter of the poem is called iambic pentameter. The form is in ABAB for the first part of the stanzas, rhyming the first lines with the third lines and the second lines with the fourth lines. The second part of each stanza is much longer and has a different rhyme form. The first stanza is CDEDCCE, and the second and third stanzas are CDECDDE. This rhyming pattern helps the poem have a stable rhyming quality that the reader can connect with the images. In the first stanza, Keats describes autumn as a close friend of the 'ripening', i.e. older, sun. The third verse continues by saying “the vines that surround the stubble bear fruit,” meaning that the sun and autumn plan to cause the fruit to grow on the vines. This line gives the image of the vines wrapping around the roof (thatched eve). In the following lines, Keats gives an image of very ripe apples. Keats mentions a gourd in the seventh line which is very appropriate for the season of autumn. In stanza 2/line 12, Keats poses a question that asks who has not seen autumn as ripe as it is now. The following lines then explain how the reader can find autumn. “Thy hair gently lifted by the winnowing wind,” tells us that Autumn may be a woman and “to winnow” means to separate the grain during cultivation. “Or on a half-harvested furrow, asleep, dozed by the smoke of the poppies, while your hook spares the next windrow and all its intertwined flowers.” Here we have the image of “she” taking a nap on a furrow – which almost looks like a hill used for agriculture – drowsy from the smell of poppy seeds while the implement she was going to use to cut the flowers rests on the ground. ground. Keats uses the harvest metaphor again in the following lines by comparing autumn to a gleaner (someone who gathers the last stalks of grain). In stanza 3, Keats asks the question where is the spring of your song? Knowing that the song of spring is not here but that of autumn. Then he describes the song of autumn, including: the clouds, the image of midges flying, the sound of lambs, the song of crickets and..