Critical Appreciation Ode to Autumn

This poem was written by John Keats in September, 1819. He was greatly struck by the beauty of the
season. The air was fine, and there was a temperate sharpness about it. The weather seemed “chaste”. The
stubble-field looked better than they did in spring. Keats was so impressed by the beauty of the weather
that he recorded his mood in the form of this ode. The ode to Autumn ranks among the finest poem of
Keats. The treatment of the subject is perfectly objective or impersonal. It is shorter but technical more
perfect. This is the most faultless of Keats’s odes in point of construction. The first stanza gives us the
bounty of autumn, the second describes the occupations of the season, and the last dwells upon its sounds.
Indeed, the poem is a complete picture of autumn, the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. In these
opening lines of the poem, the poet beautifully some of the typical characteristics and common scene of
autumn season. The first sign of the advent of autumn is the appearance of mist or fog at evening time in
the marshy area along riverbank. Secondly, during this season there is plenty of sunshine and warmth, due
to which all fruits are filled with juice. The poet presents this idea in poetic language by saying that
autumn and sun are close friend. In other word, he has personified autumn and sun by giving them the
human quality of friendship. He further says that autumn and sun conspire with each other to produce
different result.
Autumn is directly addressed in the second stanza as “thee”. The writer considers autumn during harvest
time. Again personified, the writer thinks of autumn sitting on the granary floor as the grain is being
harvested. Then the writer autumn asleep, made drowsy by the perfume of the poppies. Finally, the
autumn is watching the apples in a “cyder-press. Since the first stanza gives subtle indications of being
early in the day, the second stanza would be midday or afternoon as autumn has spent “hours by hour”
watching the harvest, a sense of sometime gone by.
In the final stanza the poet refers to the songs of spring which are not heard during autumn. Spring is
known for its wonderful natural music and Keats may be asked by someone to tell whether autumn also
has any music. In reply, the poet states autumn has plenty of music and if someone hears that music, he
will forget all the songs of spring. Later on in this stanza, the poet gives examples of five different types
of natural music produce in the autumn evening by insects, birds and animals. The swallows gather for
their migration. Their twittering is like a church bell marking the close of the day. The stanzas are also
arranged within structure of a day: morning, midday and evening. And they are arranged in the structure
of a life: conception/birth, growth and death.
Keats said “O for a life sensuous rather than of thoughts”. Sensuousness in poetry means the use of those
images, which appeal our five senses. Keats is known as a sensuous poet because his poetry is replete
with sensuous imagery. Ode to Autumn is also in sensuous images. The bounty of autumn has been
described with all its sensuous appeal. The vines suggesting grapes, the apples, the gourds, the hazels
with their sweet kernel, the bee suggesting honey – all these to our senses of taste and smell. The whole
landscape is made to appear fresh and scented. There is great concentration in each line of the first stanza.
Each line is like the branch of a fruittree laden with fruit to the breaking point. The first stanza is full of
audio images. Autumn symbolizes the maturity in human and animals lives. But the poet does not know
that he reaches in his poetic career. As his own life draw to a conclusion, his poetry has reached a most
eloquent finale. The poem marks the final moment of his career as a poet. In the Ode to autumn, Keats
wrote a poem which shows Greek way of writing more than any other poem in the English Language. It is
a classical in the true sense of the word. There is no philosophy in the poem, no allegory, no inner
meaning. We are just brought face to face with “Nature in all her richness of tint and form. The poem
breathes the spirit of Greek poetry. There is a Greek touch in the personification of autumn and there is
the Greek note in the poet’s impersonal manner of dwelling upon Nature.
The third stanza is a collection of the varied sounds of autumn-the choir of gnats, the bleating of lambs,
the singing of crickets, the whistling of red breasts, and twittering of swallows. Keats’s interest in small
and homely creatures is fully evidence in these lines. The whole poem demonstrates Keats’s interest in
nature and his keen and minute observation of natural sights and sounds. Keats’s responsiveness and
sensitivity to natural phenomena is one of the striking qualities of his poetry.
It is objective poem. Important figure Keats starts with claim but then he gives different arguments to
proof his claim. Autumn has its own beauty. Keats finds beauty in everything. Keats says that autumn is
not inferior than spring. The poem is divided into three stanzas with 11 lines in each stanza. The meter of
the poem is iambic pentameter. The general rhyme of the first stanza is ab,ab cde dcce. The general
rhyme of the second and stanza is ab, ab cde cdde. Keats is very fond of using of compound words. He
uses many compound words in Ode to Autumn such as bosom-friend, thatch-ever, o’er-brimm’d, soft-
lifted, stubble-plains. In this poem Keats has generally used simple and words. Most of the words uses by
him are monosyllabic like mists, sun, with, fill, run, vine and bisyllabic like mellow, bosom, mature,
bless, apples kernel. Keats has used longed sentences in this poem. The first full stop comes after 10 lines
and the second comes after 20 lines.
The above analysis of the theme and technique of the poem clearly reveal that it is one of the greatest
odes of John Keats. It is one of most technical perfect ode. The Ode to a Nightingale is a less perfect
though a greater poem. It contains all those poetic qualities for which he is known in the entire world as a
poet. This poem is totally objective poem. It is shorter but technical most perfect.

A Critical Appreciation of John Keats' To Autumn (Almahmud Rony)

"To Autumn" is a poem of thirty-three lines divided into three stanzas, each consisting of eleven lines.
The first stanza presents the gift of autumn; the second stanza presents the activities of autumn and the
third stanza the sounds. Being taken as a skilled woman, she works in collaboration with the late summer
sun to present its gifts: the juicy grapes and apples, the swelled ground, the sweet hazelnuts and the
honey-filled cells of the bees. In the second stanza, she is busy in harvesting. She is seen "sitting careless
on a granary floor" while her hair is lifted by the winnowing-wind.

Sometimes, she is also seen on a half-repeated field in deep sleep. At other time she is found to carry on
her head a bundle of gleaned crop. She is also open seen to work at a juice maker. She remains busy with
all the conventional activities of the time. The third stanza presents the songs and sounds of woman. She
does not have the music of spring. But she has her own music. Her songs seem like a funereal dirge but
they are her own.

"To Autumn" is written in the form of an ode. An ode is essentially a lyric poem addressed to someone.
The poem has been addressed to 'Autumn', the personification of season. This ode is a private ode written
on the model of the Horatian ode. It has three regular or uniform stanzas, each consisting of eleven lines.
Its lyrical quality or its music has been achieved by the use of rhyme, onomatopoeia, alliteration and
assonance. The rhyme scheme, with a little variation in the last four lines of the first stanza, is abab cde
cdde. There are several lines producing musical effect by the use of some figures of speech.
Autumn may not have the sweet songs of spring but it has its own music. They may sound more like
funereal dirge, but they are its own music. "To Autumn", therefore is a private ode comprising of the
address to autumn, lyrical elements, and consolation for her.

"To Autumn" is well-known for its concrete imagery. The images of the poem very aptly appeal to human
senses. The first stanza mainly appeals to the sense of taste, though it also appeals to sight. The ripe
grapes and apples, gourds, hazelnuts, are concrete images and they bring water to the mouth of the
readers. Similarly, the picture of the over brimming honey comb is very vivid and appealing to the senses
of sight and taste. "To Autumn" is, thus, very rich in concrete imagery and sensuous appeal.

Ode To Autumn Critical Appreciation (JASON LULOS)

"To Autumn" has a relatively intricate rhyme scheme of abab cdedccee in the first stanza and the 2nd and
third stanzas are abab cdecdde. The ode describes autumn and in the second and third stanzas, the poet
speaks directly to a personified autumn, a technique called apostrophe. It may be that the rhyme scheme
changes a bit in the second stanza to accompany the shift from description to a direct address.

In the first stanza, Keats emphasizes the sights and smells of early autumn. These lines are bursting with
life and movement, the ripening process itself, literally coming to life. Autumn is compared to a woman
in union with a male sun (perhaps a pun on son), their interaction a kind of procreation, making life all
around them. During early autumn, farmers are still collecting the harvest, the fruits of labor and the result
of life which was planted in the spring. The stanza ends with those fruits personified as well, thinking
their "warm days will never cease."

In the second stanza, the poet talks directly to autumn and imagines her (autumn) patiently witnessing the
end of ripening and the completion of the harvest.

In the final stanza, the poet laments the absence of spring's sounds, but tells autumn that her music is
beautiful too. This stanza emphasizes the sounds of late autumn which foretell the coming winter. The
swallows gather for their migration. Their twittering is like a church bell marking the close of the day.
The stanzas are also arranged within the structure of a day: morning midday and evening. And they are
arranged in the structure of a life: conception/birth, growth and death.

Winter, the end of autumn, is symbolic of death. Despite the morbid sense of this symbolism, the poet
accepts the end as it is a natural part of life. In many of Keats' poems, he illustrates how joy and sadness
exist together. Being aware of death, one's own mortality, is key to appreciating life. Being conscious of
the fact that life is fleeting (that winter/death will come) should lead one to not take it for granted.