Ode on a Grecian Urn Poem by John Keat

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Poem by John Keats

 

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a poem written by the English Romantic poet John Keats in May 1819 and published anonymously in the January 1820, Number 15 issue of the magazine Annals of the Fine Arts.

 

Ode on a Grecian Urn

 

“Ode on a Grecian urn” is a poem written by the English romantic poet John Keats in May 1819 and published anonymously in January 1820, number 15 Issus of the magazine Annals of the fine arts. The poem is one of several “Great odes of 1819” which include “ode to a Indolence”, “ode to a Melancholy”,“ Ode to Psyche”, “Ode to a Nightingale” Keats found earlier forms of poetry unsatisfactory for his purpose, and the collection represented a new development of the ode form. 

The poem consists of a person talking to kind of fancy Greek pot known as an “urn” that was made of marble.

 Keats would have been able to see many urns from Ancient Greece at the British Museum, the world’s biggest archeological treasure-trove. (The northern Europeans plundered the Greeks’ ancient artifacts, and some might joke that now the Greeks are taking revenge by blowing up the European economy…) Urns are known not only for their sleek, beautiful shape but also for the quality of the pictures that were often painted on their sides. Most of the poem centers on the story told in the images carved on the side of one particular urn. 

He wrote “Ode on a Grecian urn” about an imaginary urn and three images he sees on it. The scenes are about revelry and sex, a piper and a lover’s pursuit of a fair maid, and a sacrificial ritual. All the scenes depict some form of human emotion, particularly love and desire.

Keats uses a lot of imagery from Greek culture to illustrate the importance of beauty. In the first stanza, he speaks of the places in Greece known for their beauty and serenity.