Johnny Saldana

10-2-17

Themes and conflicts:

Silence unspoken vs spoken
o Bride of quietness, foster child of silence, slow time,
o Heard melodies refers to the physical songs which are nice, but true beauty
comes from the unspoken (silent) ode that is detailed on the urn. It takes on
a more spiritual tone and blends together the mortal and godlike
o Soft pipes
o silence is desolate, the abandoned citadel with on more people.
o The urn possesses the passions of the
Nature
o Sylvan historian, flowery tale sweet
o Pastoral landscape is serene and heavenly
o At the same time the frozen figures are somewhat unnatural
The fact the trees never age or loose branches, how the lovers are
stuck
Passage of time, the eternal urn
o The urn is eternal preserving this beauty but at the same time its almost a
curse.
o Haunting
o Marble men, these nonliving things preserving the stamped passions of
their living creators
o Frozen snapshot almost horror
Sexual themes
o Wild ecstasy, the lovers, sensual ear, panting and love human passion far
above (almost some sort of climax that can be heard in the heavens.
o Repetition of happy comes across as somewhat disingenuous.
Outline:

1. The spiritual quality and beauty of the unspoken. On a superficial basis the
heavenly pastoral landscape and fine detailing, but on a deeper level the method
with which the passions of humanity are captured on an inanimate object. Also the
tension between the almost dismissive manner with which the poet addresses the
subjects of the urn (what men or gods are these?) and the actual reality of what it
represents.
Keats places the urn in between the planes of gods and men, attributing a spiritual and
religious quality to the unheard melody of the urn, that captures a fragment of human
essence.

2. The conflict of the curse of eternity with the vigorous snapshot of life. On one
hand Keats celebrates the essence of human experience captured in the urn but
also pities the isolation and lack of freedom in the urns subjects. They are almost
imprisoned in a sense as a forced reminder of some human spirit haunting yet its
also a symbol of human passion enduring through the ages.

Keats creates a tension between the beauty of human experience captured by the urns
subjects and the sad fate they are cursed, celebrating the endurance of the human spirit
despite its ultimate fate succumbing to time.
3. Time has an unusual relationship with the urn described as familial. Yet time is
also the bringer of decay and silence to all of mans creation. It is against time that
the urn, a capsule of human spirit, must endure against.
In the final stanza, Keats plays with the temporal scale, heightening the unusual and
almost sadistic relationship between the urn and its familial relation time.

Thesis:
Keats unveils the duality of the urn as both a blessing, preserving the passion and vitality of human
nature, and a curse sentencing its subjects to exist in a frozen limbo slowly eroding away in the face of
time. Presenting a nu
Johnny Saldana

10-3-17

English Essay

Keats unveils the duality of the urn as both a blessing, preserving the passion and vitality of
human nature, and a curse sentencing its subjects to exist in a frozen limbo slowly eroding away in the
face of time. The urn is first presented as a symbol of tranquil purity, encapsulating a spiritual that exists
outside the realm of mortals. With with its unspoken melodies. Keats places the urn in between the
realms of man and god a