John Keats Ode to Autumn summary and analysis

John Keats‟ “Ode to Autumn”

Type of Work

......."To Autumn" is a romantic ode, a dignified but highly lyrical (emotional) poem in which the author speaks to a person or thing absent or present. In this famous ode, the speaker addresses autumn personified while developing his theme. The romantic ode was at the pinnacle of its popularity in the nineteenth century. It was the result of an author’s deep meditation on his subject. 
.......The romantic ode evolved from the ancient Greek ode, written in a serious tone to celebrate an event or to praise an individual. The Greek ode was intended to be sung by a chorus or by one person. The odes of the Greek poet Pindar (circa 518-438 BC) frequently extolled athletes who participated in games at Olympus, Delphi, the Isthmus of Corinth, and Nemea. Bacchylides, a contemporary of Pindar, also wrote odes praising athletes. 
.......The Roman poets Horace (65-8 BC) and Catullus (84-54 BC) wrote odes based on the Greek model, but their odes were not intended to be sung. In the nineteenth century, English romantic poets wrote odes that retained the serious tone of the Greek ode. However, like the Roman poets, they did not write odes to be sung. Unlike the Roman poets, though, the authors of nineteenth-century romantic odes generally were more emotional in their writing. 
Composition and Publication Dates
.......John Keats completed "To Autumn" in September 1819. The London firm of Taylor and Hessey published the ode in 1820 as part of a collection entitled Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and Other Poems.
Source of Inspiration
.......Keats explained the source of inspiration for "To Autumn" in a letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (1794-1852), a friend and fellow poet. Keats wrote,

How beautiful the season is now—How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather—Dian skies—I never liked stubble-fields so much as now—Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow, a stubble-field looks warm—in the same way that some pictures look warm. This struck me so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it. (quoted in Stephens 917)

Work Cited

Stephens, James; Edwin L. Beck, and Royall H. Snow. English Romantic Poets. New York: American Book Company, 1961.








Themes
Season of Fruition
.......Autumn is the season of fruition. It yields the bounty that sustains life—grapes, apples, pumpkins, squash, nuts, and honey—and fills the granaries with the field harvest. Then, to the mournful sound of gnats riding the wind, the sun sets on the season and “gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”
.......People also bear fruit—children, poems, scientific and technological advancements. They teach, build, heal, entertain, and advocate for change; they give time and money.  And then they fall asleep on a furrow as “barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day  / And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue.”
Contentment
.......Because autumn is a season of fulfillment, when the fruits of labor abound, it is also a season of contentment. Personified autumn reflects this contentment when it sits 

                  careless on a granary floor, 
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies (lines 14-16)

End Rhyme

.......The end rhyme of the first stanza is abab cde dcce. The end rhyme of the second and third stanzas is abab cde cdde.
Internal Rhyme
.......The poem also contains internal rhyme. Here are examples. 

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells (line 7)
Until they think warm days will never cease (line 10)
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? (line 12)
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind (line 15)
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep (line 16)
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook (line 17)
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep (line 19)

Meter

.......The meter of the poem is iambic pentameter, as the second line demonstrates. 

........1.....................2...............3..............4..............5
Close BOS,..|..om-FRIEND..|..of THE..|..ma TUR..|..ing SUN

Text of the Poem

 
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 
Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; 
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,      
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 
To swell the gourd,¹ and plump the hazel² shells 
With a sweet kernel;³ to set budding more, 
And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
Until they think warm days will never cease; 
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.⁴................ 11

Who hath not seen thee⁵ oft amid thy store?⁶
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,⁷
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers: 
And sometimes like a gleaner⁸ thou dost keep 
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
Or by a cyder-press,⁹ with patient look, 
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.................... 22
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— 
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day 
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows,¹⁰ borne aloft 
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;¹¹  
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;¹²
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies........................... 33

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Notes
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1.....gourd: Plant family that includes pumpkins, melons, cucumbers, and squash.
2.....hazel: Having to do with trees and shrubs that produce edible nuts, such as hazelnuts (filberts). 
3.....kernel: Nut inside a hazel shell. Hazel shells are referred to in line 7.
4.....their clammy cells: Hexagonal-shaped wax cells that make up a beehive.
5.....thee: Autumn personified.
6.....store: granary; storehouse.
7.....Thy hair . . . asleep: Autumn personified is seen one moment in the granary and in another moment asleep in a field.
8.....gleaner: Gatherer of grains.
9.....cyder- press: Cider press, a machine that extracts juice from apples. The juice is used to make cider.
10...wailful choir . . . sallows: The choir of gnats provides the music referred to in line 24. The gnats' song is a dirge signaling the end of autumn. A sallow is a willow tree. 
11...bourn: boundary.
12...croft: Small plot of land.
.

Figures of Speech

.......Following are examples of figures of speech in the poem. (For definitions of figures of speech, click here.)
Alliteration

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness (line 1)
Conspiring with him how to load and bless (line 3)
With a sweet kernel to set budding more (line 8)
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? (line 12)

Apostrophe

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?  (lines 12)
The speaker addresses autumn.

Assonance

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep (line 19)

Metaphor

                   later flowers for the bees, 
Until they think warm days will never cease
Comparison of bees to humans. (Only humans can think.)

Personification

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 
Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run (lines 1-4)
Comparison of autumn and the sun to persons

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn (line 27)
Comparison of gnats to humans. (Only humans can mourn.)

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الفصل الثالث محاكمة هيستر برين

الفصل الثالث
كان فى هندي من الهنود الحمر و كان شكله غريب بس مش لدرجة انهم راح يسبو هستر ويطالعو فيه وكان جمبه رجل ابيض لابس لبس همجي على متحضر و جسمه صغير و كان واضح على وجهه علامات الذكاء و التقدم فى السن وكان واحد من كتوفه اعلى من الثاني. لما هستر شافت هذا الرجل حضنت الطفل لدرجة صار يبكى وما انتبهت لبكائه. وهو طالع لها بنظره عفوية بعدين نظر لها بتمعن و وجهه اسود بس بعدين اتحكم بردة فعله و لما شافها انتبتهت له حط اصباعه على فمه بإشارة لها انها تسكت ولمس كتف واحد واقف جمبه وسئله مين هذي؟ واش حكايتها! الرجل قاله شكلك غريب عن هنا هذى هستر براين الى عملت الفضيحة فى الكنيسة قالة ايوة أنا غريب كنت فى البحر وضعت وهذا الهندي هو الى انقذ حياتى ورجع سئله عن حكياة هستر راح الرجال قاله ان هذى المرأة زوجها واحد انجليزي و ارسلها قبله الى بوسطن و بعدين طلعت الفضيحة وقاله ان البنت الى شايلتها ماهى من زوجها وهى رافضة تعترف مين ابو البنت وقال المفروض ان زوجها يجي عشان يشوف الى صار وهذول الى فى الكنيسة قالو انه فى احد ضحك عليها عشان كذا ماعاقبوها العقاب القاسي واكتفو بأنها توقف عالمنصة دى كل يوم تلات ساعات وتشيل الحرف على صدرها العمر كله.هذى العقوبة حكيمة انها تشيل العار طول عمرها حتى لما تموت راح ينحط الحرف على قبرها لكن يؤسفنى ان شريكها فى الجريمة مارح يوقف معاها لكنه راح ينعرف راح ينعرف راح ينعرف. الرجل شكره ومشي وهستر كانت تطالع له وكئنه مابقى في المكان غيرها وغيره وكانت خايفه من مقابلة الشخص دا.فى احد كان ينادى هستر بس هى ما انتبهت الا لما ناداها مره ثانيه.طالعت هستر فى الى كان يناديها وكان جون وينلسون هو الى ينادي عليها وهو من كبار بوسطن وقالها ان هذا الشخص –اشار لرجل يقف لجواره الى اسمه المنستر ديمزديل- اقنعنى انى مايصير اخليكي تفضحى أسرار قلبك قدام الناس وهذا الرجل طلب انه يكون هو الى يتكلم معاكي ويعرف منك شريكك في هذه الجريمة . المنستر ديمزديل سئها عن شريكها و طلب منها تعترف لكنها قالت انها راح تشيل عارها وعارها حاول يقنعها تعترف لكن هى رفضت وخلص عقابها ورجعت للسجن تانى.

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Twelfth Night Act 1 Scene 3 Summary and Analysis

Act I: Scene 3

Summary

At Olivia's house, Sir Toby Belch, Olivia's uncle, is criticizing his niece for mourning the death of her brother so profusely. He says to her serving girl, Maria, that his niece is melodramatically overreacting, and he thoroughly disapproves. Maria disapproves of several things herself: she disapproves of Sir Toby's arriving at such a late hour, dressing so slovenly, and drinking so much. Only yesterday, Olivia complained of these things, plus the fact that Sir Toby brought someone who he thinks is the perfect suitor to the house, Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Despite Maria's calling Aguecheek a "fool and a prodigal," Sir Toby is proud of the chap — a fitting suitor for his niece: Aguecheek, he says, receives three thousand ducats a year, plays the violincello, and speaks several languages. Maria is not impressed. To her, the man is reputed to be a gambler, a quarreler, a coward, and a habitual drunkard.

When Sir Andrew joins them, there follows a brief exchange of jests, most of them at Sir Andrew's expense. Maria leaves, and the two men discuss Sir Andrew's chances as a prospective suitor of Olivia. Sir Andrew is discouraged and ready to ride home tomorrow, but Sir Toby persuades him to prolong his visit for another month, especially since Sir Andrew delights in masques and revels and, as Sir Toby points out, Sir Andrew is a superb dancer and an acrobat, as well. Laughing and joking, the two men leave the stage. It is obvious that Sir Toby has a secret and mysterious purpose for wanting to persuade Sir Andrew to stay and woo the fair Olivia.

Analysis

With this scene, we are introduced to still another set of characters: in the modern idiom, we have already met the "upstairs" characters; now we meet the "downstairs" characters. Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Maria form the subplot that counterbalances the main plot. Sir Toby Belch, as his name implies, is characterized by his heavy drinking and by his obese, corpulent frame. In an earlier play, Shakespeare created a similar type of character in Sir John Falstaff (See Henry IV, Part I and Part II); this character was extremely popular with Elizabethan audiences, and Sir Toby is reminiscent of the earlier Sir John; both are plump, jolly knights with a penchant for drinking, merrymaking, and foolery of all types. In this play, Sir Toby spends most of his time complimenting Sir Andrew so that the latter will continue to supply him with money for drinking and cavorting. Sir Toby's niece, we discover, is too withdrawn in her melodramatic mourning to be aware of the partying going on in her house, but when she does become aware of it, she disapproves and relies upon her steward, Malvolio, to keep her household in order; thus, Malvolio will soon become the butt of the partymakers' jokes.

Maria, another member of the subplot, is Olivia's vivacious, clever, and mischievous maid. She comes from a Shakespearean tradition of servants who are wittier and cleverer than the people who surround them. Thus, she will be seen to be far more witty than Sir Andrew Aguecheek is, and he will become the object of her many jokes and puns, but he will never realize the extent to which Maria ridicules him.

Sir Andrew Aguecheek is necessary for the plot mainly because he is in possession of three thousand ducats a year, and Sir Toby is anxious to remain on good terms with him so as to be a recipient of the eccentric knight's beneficence. Consequently, he continually plots ways to make the knight think that Olivia is indeed receptive to the romantic overtures of the tall, skinny, ridiculous knight. Now we know that two vastly different people, Duke Orsino and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, are both seeking the hand of the Lady Olivia. Later, Malvolio will become a third "suitor," by a ruse played upon him by Maria and her cohorts.

Click here for Twelfth Night Act 1 Scene 4 Summary and Analysis 

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Emily Dickinson A Bird came down the Walk summary analysis

Emily Dickinson „s “A Bird came down the Walk”

Summary

The speaker describes once seeing a bird come down the walk, unaware that it was being watched. The bird ate an angleworm, then “drank a Dew / From a convenient Grass—,” then hopped sideways to let a beetle pass by. The bird’s frightened, bead-like eyes glanced all around. Cautiously, the speaker offered him “a Crumb,” but the bird “unrolled his feathers” and flew away—as though rowing in the water, but with a grace gentler than that with which “Oars divide the ocean” or butterflies leap “off Banks of Noon”; the bird appeared to swim without splashing.

Form

Structurally, this poem is absolutely typical of Dickinson, using iambic trimeter with occasional four-syllable lines, following a loose ABCB rhyme scheme, and rhythmically breaking up the meter with long dashes. (In this poem, the dashes serve a relatively limited function, occurring only at the end of lines, and simply indicating slightly longer pauses at line breaks.)

Commentary

Emily Dickinson’s life proves that it is not necessary to travel widely or lead a life full of Romantic grandeur and extreme drama in order to write great poetry; alone in her house at Amherst, Dickinson pondered her experience as fully, and felt it as acutely, as any poet who has ever lived. In this poem, the simple experience of watching a bird hop down a path allows her to exhibit her extraordinary poetic powers of observation and description.

Dickinson keenly depicts the bird as it eats a worm, pecks at the grass, hops by a beetle, and glances around fearfully. As a natural creature frightened by the speaker into flying away, the bird becomes an emblem for the quick, lively, ungraspable wild essence that distances nature from the human beings who desire to appropriate or tame it. But the most remarkable feature of this poem is the imagery of its final stanza, in which Dickinson provides one of the most breath-taking descriptions of flying in all of poetry. Simply by offering two quick comparisons of flight and by using aquatic motion (rowing and swimming), she evokes the delicacy and fluidity of moving through air. The image of butterflies leaping “off Banks of Noon,” splashlessly swimming though the sky, is one of the most memorable in all Dickinson’s writing.

In the Garden A bird came down the walk: He did not know I saw; He bit an angle-worm in halves And ate the fellow, raw. And then he drank a dew From a convenient grass, And then hopped sidewise to the wall To let a beetle pass. He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all abroad,-- They looked like frightened beads, I thought; He stirred his velvet head Like one in danger; cautious, I offered him a crumb, And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer home Than oars divide the ocean, Too silver for a seam, Or butterflies, off banks of noon, Leap, plashless, as they swim.

The speaker observes the bird and tries to establish contact with the bird by offering it food. The bird flies off. A few of the speaker's details describe the bird as a wild creature in nature, and more details present his behavior and his appearance in terms of human behavior.

Stanza one

Because the bird does not know the speaker is present, he behaves naturally, that is, his behavior is not affected by her presence. We see the bird's "wildness" or non-humanness in his biting the worm in half and eating it. "Raw" continues to emphasize his wildness. Ironically the word "raw" carries an implication of civilized values and practices ("raw" implicitly contrasts with cooked food). Why mention that the bird ate the worm raw? Would you expect the bird to cook the worm? In contrast, the fact that the bird "came" down the walk sounds civilized, socialized.  Does this description sound like someone walking on a sidewalk?

Stanza two

The birds' drinking dew (note the alliteration) suggests a certain refinement, and "from a grass" makes the action resemble the human action of drinking from a glass. And the bird politely allows a beetle to pass.

Stanza three

In lines one and two, the description of the bird's looking around is factual description and suggests the bird's caution and fear, as well as a possible threat in nature. With lines three and four, the speaker describes the bird in terms of civilization, with "beads" and "velvet."

Stanza four

The idea of danger in nature is made explicit but remains a minor note in this stanza and in the poem. It occupies only half a line, "Like one in danger." "Cautious," the speaker offers the crumb. How is "cautious " meant? Does the speaker feel the need to be cautious? or does she offer the crumb cautiously? (One of the characteristics of Dickinson's poetry is a tendency to drop endings as well as connecting words and phrases; you have to decide whether she has dropped the -ly ending from "cautious.")

Her action causes the bird to fly off. Her description of his flight details his beauty and the grace of his flight, a description which takes six lines. Does the idea of danger or of the bird's beauty receive more emphasis, or are the danger and the beauty emphasized equally? Does it matter in this poem whether one receives more emphasis than the other, that is, would the different emphases affect the meaning of the poem?

I am suggesting that this poem reveals both the danger and the beauty of nature. Does the poem support this reading? What might Dickinson's purpose be in having the narrator see the bird in "civilized" terms? Is it a way of pushing away or of controlling the threat and terrors that are always present and may suddenly appear in nature?

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Periods of English Literature مراحل الادب الانجليزي 2

Jacobean Age (1603 - 1625)

العصر اليعقوبي

This was certainly the age of prose writing and Donne and Bacon were christened as propellers of doctrines proposed by them. Shakespeare with his tragedies and tragicomedies made an impact with the other notable playwrights such as Chapman, Burton, Beaumont and Fletcher.

Caroline Age (1625 - 1649)

This was the time when John Milton along with melancholy centric writers Burton and Browne composed prose and plays. It was also an era where the religious poet George Herbert concentrated on poetry on gallantry, courtship and courtly love.

Commonwealth Period (1649 - 1660)

Puritan Interregnum was an alternative term used for this era. The commonwealth age saw writers like Cowley, Marvell and Davenant. It was an age where Milton portrayed his prowess in political subjects and Hobbes' distinguished his writing style in the form of political treatise called Leviathan.

Neoclassical Period (1660 - 1785)

The neoclassical period was an institution of poets where the light of knowledge acquisition with discipline and respect was given an overwhelming importance. With neoclassic poetry, the subjects had the elements nature as its background. The restoration period marked an influx of theater where William Wycherley and George Etherege developed a genre of Comedy of manners. The Country Wife, William Wycherley's play centered around the nuances of bawdy language and semi-aristocratic flavor that delivered the eccentricities of characters with their names suggesting their counter characters, thus the play is allegorical with a completeness of its own. The Augustus age novelist and journalist Daniel Defoe and Lady Mary Wortley wrote poems of wit, candor and conviction.

Romantic Period (1785 - 1832)

The romantic period had its origins in spontaneity and quick wit. It was an age that lay stress on nature and deemed nature not as the background but the backbone of poetry. The romantic period had experimentation and invention running through the veins of poetry. Poets like Keats, Shelley, Burns, William Blake, Coleridge and Wordsworth made a significant and radical impact on the face of poetry. It was an era where universe and nature were considered in the forefront of all the human nitty-gritty as the background of poetry.

Victorian Period (1832 - 1901)

The Victorian period had melancholy and mourning as its corner stones where poetry is concerned. Tennyson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were notable poets who focused on subjects of death and unconditional love and longing. This period also dealt with imaginative, often didactic verses composed that reflected on the socio-economic context in detail. Samuel Butler, Thomas Hardy, William Thackeray and Gerard Manley Hopkins were the notable authors and essayists who made their mark in this period of English literature.

Edwardian Period (1901 - 1914)

The span where the Victorian period ended and the World War I began marked the reign of King Edward. This was the period where Thomas Hardy gave up on writing novels for the love of poetry, William Butler Yeats and Rudyard Kipling made a name of their own in the field of poetry. Another coveted and well established playwright was Henry James who published his novels in the Edwardian era. These were The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl.

Georgian Period (1914 - 1936)

The Georgian period saw a group of writers denoted as Georgian poets who focused on rural subjects that were delicate to handle. They were subjects that were not regarded as bold and too ferocious in nature. The major characteristic was the poetry being submissive and more traditional in manner rather than rough, experimental and technical in pace and matter. Walter de la Mare and W.H. Davies were some of the poets that were regarded as Georgian poets.

Modernism and Postmodernism (1939 - ...)

Modernism and postmodernism are terms that have undergone relative change in the recent past. The modern poets include Yeats, Auden, T.S. Eliot, Franz Kafka amongst the many notable poets and authors. Modern period of English literature was marked by a new style, format, mis-en-scene, concept and the relative features of the subjects in question. Virginia Wolf's, a stream of thought writer, Jacob's Room and James Joyce's Ulysses were monotone narratives that signified the rapidity with which innovation in poetry occurred.

Postmodernism is an era in which the individual has to look beyond the obvious, draw parallels with reality with absurdity and overt projection of sexuality has been made prominent. Postmodernism marks R.K. Narayan, Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy as writers who have their very own signature, post colonial ways of writing and projecting their thought in their unique ways.

English Literature is a treasure trove, that must be unearthed, for literature enthusiasts are perpetually mulling over the legacy, such stalwarts of the language have managed to define. Their genius, indeed, is indefinable - almost an embarrassment of the riches! 

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