The poem Ode on a Grecian Urn is written by John Keats who belongs to the second generation of Romantic age. The poem gives the Romantic essence of negative capability, sensuousness , imagination, hellenism , beauty and immortality. It is one of the most read poem in the British Literature. The odes of Keats are famous for its vitality and strong flow of emotional endurance that makes the poetry sublime.
The first Romantic essence in the poem is the use of negative capability. Keats uses negative capability to objectify a particular object to portray it objectively. In the poem, the Greek images and couples in the Urn are objectified in the poem. The poet’s shadow is completely subtracted when the urn itself is given the ability of “Sylvan historian” who can narrate the “flowery tale” implying that the narrator is the urn itself and not the poet. It is the urn and the objectified images in it which gives a sensual explanations and stories to the sight of human beings or readers. The idea of immortality and beauty is also objectified or given a oneness in the poem where the images in urn gives a sensual beauty but also projects the space and time of immortal beauty since “She cannot fade” beauty and will sung like an immortal piper whose songs renews into a new one. The last two lines of the poem where “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,- that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” summarizes the entire poem. The beauty is immortal which is objectified on the virtue of truth and vice versa. It means to suggest the permanent beauty or immortality of art or the urn which will keep retelling the story of truth to the entire world. It can also be noted that these lines are interchangeable and there are no need for further assessment or analysis. The ability of the poet to make it remain uncertain or ambiguous of these lines to the reader itself is the reflection of negative capability.
The poem is sensuous in its writing. Keats is also considered as a sensuous poet for his uses of human senses in his writings. In the poem, the speaker is suggesting that the beauty of the urn can only be felt with the sensual feelings or sight and also mentions the “unheard” melodies which seems to be more fruitful than the heard ones. The images and the beauty of the urn itself gives a sensuous touch in the poem since it can only be felt by the human perceptions.
The another aspect of writing is the Hellenistic writing. The Greek images are objectified in the urn where the urn seems to project the story of “deities or mortals” or the tales of “Tempe or the Dales of Arcady”. These images are the reflections of Hellenistic writings and bridges an essence of sensual appealing and beauty that the urn provides. The Hellenistic writing in this case gives a sense of mystery as well since the urn makes the reader to ponder about the “mad pursuit” or wild ecstasy” that the images reflects.
However, Keatsian imagination is different from Wordsworth and Coleridge’s theory of imagination. His imagination is earthly and finite to the natural landscape. The imaginative exploration of the urn and its images is limited since Keats do not take a flight of imagination to the another cosmic world. He limits himself to the particular object and comes back to the earth as of his imaginative flight. Ode on a Grecian Urn narrates the stories of the lovers and their immortal love which remains unaffected with time. His imagination rests on the images of the urn itself and explore the insights into the images of the urn for instance into the piper whose songs continuously renews into a new one implying an unending note of song or immortal note where Keats is trying to embark upon the idea of immortality.
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