Sweety Borgohain Supriya Gogoi

The Ode on a Grecian Urn is considered as one of the finest poem of John Keats. It was written in May 1819 and was published in January 1820. This poem has shown Keatss poetic genius as the worshipper of art and beauty. In the words of Sydney Colvin, the main theme of the poem is the vital difference between life, which pays for its unique prerogative of reality by satiety and decay, and art, which is forfeiting reality, gains in exchange permanence of beauty, and the power to charm by imaginative experience, even brief than the real.

The objective of this paper is to critically appreciate the poem Ode on a Grecian Urn as the representative poem of John Keats.

The paper is based on content analysis. Both primary as well as secondary sources are used which are collected from different books and internet service.

The Ode on a Grecian Urn represents a gistorical object of Greek civilization, an urn painted with the scenes from Greek life. At the beginning of the ode, the poet is standing before an urn, and speaks to it as if it were alive. He treats the urn not as a subject but as like it is a human.

The Ode on a Grecian Urn may be discussed as the representative poem of John Keats. It illustrate all the essential feature of Keatss poetry his Hellenism, his concept of

beauty, his sensuousness, his meditativeness and his felicity of expression and basically his attitude to art and reality.

The Grecian Urn shows magical felicity of Keatss style. It is full of well-chosen phrases, expressions and concrete images Leaffringed legend, fear youth, beneath the trees, happy melodies-forever piping songs, forever long, the heifer lowing at the sky, little town empty of each folk. These expression and images effectively stir our imagination like some pictures and sculptures as we read the poem.

The poem Ode on a Grecian Urn ends on a positive note with the message that Beauty is truth and truth is beauty. According to Keats, Beauty and truth are not two separate things, but one and the same thing seen from two different aspects, what is beautiful; must be true , and what is true must be beautiful, Beauty in art or ideal beauty is the external truth.

Throughout the poem Keats successfully represents the poem his attitude to Greek art and beauty and shows the differences what is in the world of art and the world of reality. He also successfully represents the concept of the beauty and the truth in the convencingly . His treatment of sensuousness appeals us most and makes the poem an universal one.

Poems Old and New. OUP Quiller-Couch, Arthur, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_on_a_Greci an_Urn