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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خصائص برج الحمل حصري

برج الحمل (21 مارس - 19 ابريل)

اول برج في الزودياك ويرمز الى الولادة والطفولة وهكذا انسان برج الحمل يدور في فلكه مهتما بحاجاته اذا سعىالى شيء قام بالمستحيل للوصول اليه هل هي الانانية! نعم اذا اعتبرنا الاطفال انانيين انه بريء براءةالطفل الامر الذي يشفع لتلك العدائية التي عرفت عنه . هذا البرج يعتبر من الأبراج الذكورية، وهو نهاري ناري،يحب عمل المعروف مع كل الناس، يتميز بالمرح الشديد وسرعة البديهة، مواليده يكرهون التفكير في المشكلات المادية ويرفضون استبقاءها ويشعرون بروح المغامرة، فهم يملكون حركة وحيوية لا حدود لها. طبيعة هذا البرج نارية، وكوكبه المريخ. جرأة انسان الحمل تدعو الىالحيرة والاستغراب فبينما نراه يشق طريقه بعزم وثبات نجده يرتعش وينكمش امام الاوجاع الجسدية . يغلب على مواقفه التحرر والفرديه يجود بوقته وماله وان كان يفتقر الى الرقة واللباقة وهو قليل الصبر. اما في ميدان الصداقة فهو محب وكريم من شيمه المواظبة والاقدام مثل القائد الباسل . يجهل الكذب والتحايل ويتبع الاسلوب المباشر في جميع تحركاته. الرجل في برج الحمل : حيوية الأحلام مواليد الحمل في شهر آذار (مارس) نساء ورجالا يتصفون بروحانية عالية، وهم اقل حركة وعنفوانا واقل تصلبا وعصبية من المواليد في شهر نيسان/ إبريل، بسبب مغناطيسية القمر وذبذباته التي تؤثر مباشرة في مجمل تصرفاتهم ولديهم طبيعة متناقضة هي اقرب إلى مواليد الحوت في شهر آذار (مارس). مولود الحمل قلب في عقل وعقل في قلب قد يكون أنانيا ولكن نادرا ما نصادف حملا بخيلا فبقدر اهتمامه بالمظاهر وبحبه لحياة البذخ والترف وكل وسيلة تساعده على الظهور فقد لا يهتم كثيرا للثراء في مقابل اهتمامه للمراكز العالية ولدور قيادي وتوفير حياة صاخبة ومثيرة، تجذبه الأضواء والشهرة وكل ما يدفعه إلى الصفوف الأمامية. كريم ومضياف يحترم العائلة وروابطها وهو خير من يعقد مصالحات اجتماعية، ويعشق الأطفال ولوالدته مكانه خاصة في قلبه. هذا الرجل الذي يبدو للوهلة الأولى جادا ورصينا وربما وقحا، في داخله مشاعر عميقة وروح إنسانية كبيرة.. فهو يقدم لزوجته أو حبيبته كل ما تحتاج إليه، ويرغب في أن يراها أجمل النساء، ولكنه يفضل ألا تسأله عن أموره المالية. انه حنون عاطفي وجريء يقتحم المخاطر بشجاعة وهو من الشخصيات التي تقاتل بعنف ويقبل التحدي بسهولة مهما كانت النتائج، وهو عادة لا يتوقع الهزيمة.. معه لن تشعر المرأة بالملل، فالروتين يقتل حماسه، وهو بحاجة دائما إلى الإثارة، على المرأة أن تكون جاهزة في كل وقت لمفاجأته، وأن تحترم حاجته الكبرى إلى الاستقلالية، وإلا سيتحول إلى شخص عدواني وانتقاداته لاذعة، وفي ساعة غضبه يوجه كلاما جارحا ومؤذيا قد يدمر علاقته بحبيبته، إلا أنها قد تأخذ منه الكثير والمستحيل أن تعاملت معه بلطف وحنان وذكاء. الأبراج التي تلائم برج الحمل:- إن البرجين اللذين يمكن أن يقيم برج الحمل علاقة ناجحة معهما البرجان الناريان الأسد والقوس. المرأة في برج الحمل : طبيعتها المستقلة الانفرادية تتيح لها الاتكال على نفسها في مختلف الاعمال والواجبات اليومية . من افضل صفاتها الصدق والتفاؤل والاخلاص ويرضيها من الرجل اعتدال العاطفة. وهي مع ذلك انفعالية تفقد سيطرتها على نفسها وتستعيد هدوءها بسرعة مماثلة ابتسامتها دائما مشرقة وتفاؤلها مستمر وان كانت سريعة العطب. بسبب صدقها وطيبها اذا ساعدها الحظ ولقيت الرجل الملاءم تحولت الى نعجة طيبة مسالمة وبات زوجها من اسعد الرجال. تنجذب المرأة الحمل انجذابا قويا ناحية الأسد، كما يمكن أن تقيم معه علاقة مرحة مسلية لانهما يملكان صفات وهوايات مشتركة تساعدها على أن تكون صديقة وحبيبة في الوقت نفسه... يستطيع الأسد أن يعطيها طاقته المندفعة والاستقرار والنظام اللذين تحتاج اليهما...مع القوس تستطيع أن تبني علاقة مثيرة وفورية ... تسافر معه إلى أماكن بعيدة وتشعر بان حياتها مغامرة رائعة معه، يمكنها أن تبني معه جسرا من التفاهم الشديد. مشاهير ينتمون لهذا البرج :  عمر الشريف ، تشارلي تشابلن، أدولف هتلر، بات ديفز، مارلون براندو، توماس جيفرسون، ديفيد جينسن، دوريس داي، جلوريا سوانسون، ديانا روس، تينيس ويليامز، التون جون، أنتوني بيركنز، فنسنت فان جوخ، إيدي ميرفي .

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My Heart Leaps Up Summary analysis

My Heart Leaps Up… (Summary)

The Poem ‘My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold’ is written by William Wordsworth. He is one of the poets who started romanticism in English literature. He expressed his love towards nature in his literary works. According to him “Poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes it origin from emotions recollected in tranquility.” In this poem he recollects an experience of his childhood days and gives his emotions and feelings a meaning.

When the poet sees the rainbow in the sky, his heart becomes extremely happy. The situation was same when he was a child. He used to become happy when he saw rainbow in the sky in his child hood. The condition is still same in the present. Now the poet is an adult and his heart still becomes happy when he sees rainbow. He wants his heart to be happy in future also in the same way when he will see the rainbow. And he wishes to die if the happiness in his heart for the rainbow doesn’t remain same when he will become old in future. He thinks that the child is father of the man because a child has all the characteristics that grow along with him and become the characteristics of the man. In the same way a growing man develops the characteristics he showed as a child. So, the poet wishes to tie each of his coming days with the worship and love of nature as childhood.

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Summary and Analysis of "My heart leaps up when I behold" 

In this very short poem consisting of only 9 lines, the speaker begins by declaring that he is moved by nature, and especially by nature's beauty: "My heart leaps up when I behold / A Rainbow in the sky." He goes on to say that he has always felt the impact of nature, even when he was an infant: "So was it when my life began; / So is it now I am a man." The speaker is so certain of his connection with nature that he says it will be constant until he becomes an old man, or else he would rather die: "So be it when I shall grow old, / Or let me die!" In the next line he declares that children are superior to men because of their proximity to nature: "The Child is father of the Man." For this reason, he wishes to bind himself to his childhood self: "And I could wish my days to be / Bound each to each by natural piety."

Analysis




Written on March 26, 1802 and published in 1807 as an epigraph to "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," this poem addresses the same themes found in "Tintern Abbey" and "Ode; Intimations of Immortality," albeit in a much more concise way. The speaker explains his connection to nature, stating that it has been strong throughout his life. He even goes so far as to say that if he ever loses his connection he would prefer to die.
The seventh line of the poem is the key line: "The Child is father of the Man." This line is often quoted because of its ability to express a complicated idea in so few words. The speaker believes (as explained in more detail in "Tintern Abbey") that children are closer to heaven and God, and through God, nature, because they have recently come from the arms of God. The speaker understands the importance of staying connected to one's own childhood, stating: "I could wish my days to be / Bound each to each by natural piety."
Wordsworth chooses the word "piety" to express the bond he wishes to attain (and maintain) with his childhood self, because it best emphasizes the importance of the bond. His readers would have been accustomed to the idea of piety in the religious sense, and would thus have been able to translate the meaning behind the word to an understanding of the power of the bond Wordsworth hopes to attain. 
The format of "My heart leaps up when I behold" gives the poem a somewhat staccato feeling and forces the reader to pause at important points in the poem. For instance, the two short lines of the poem are both quite significant. First, "A rainbow in the sky" harkens back to God's promise to Noah signifying their bond, and foreshadows the speaker's wish to be "Bound...by natural piety." The sixth line, "Or let me die!" shows the strength of the speaker's convictions.

Wordsworth's poem is in the Romantic tradition. Romanticism is characterized by the highly personal interpretation of meaning, is often charged with emotion, and frequently looks to nature for meaning in life. Romantic poets shunned the epic tradition of lauding heroes and kings, an instead embraced subjects that affected the poets on an intimate level, whether spiritually, in literature, in history, or philosophy. 
In this poem, we see the speaker reflecting on the beauty and wonder of nature, of which he is a part:

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

He realizes that he is a part of the vast circle of life, and that the natural world was present at his birth, as he lives, and will go on after he dies. Should it not be so, he shudders to think, life would be pointless:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The next line refers not only to biological life, but also to spiritual life. We are God's children, the speaker says:

The Child is father of the Man;

Finally, his inward prayer is that he remember the gift and beauty of life and that he might never take such grace and beauty for granted.

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

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Lord Byron‟s “She Walks in Beauty” Analysis

Lord Byron‟s “She Walks in Beauty”

ABOUT THE POEM:

meaning:

Of course it's obvious that this poem is somewhat of a love poem, expressing how beautiful this woman is that Lord Byron is looking at. She combines opposites (or extremes) in perfect proportions in her looks and in her personality. Whether it is a true declaration of love or a statement of admiration (of her beauty) is left to the reader, since it's known that this poem was about his cousin, Mrs. Wilmot, whom he met at a party in a mourning dress of spangled black.

mechanisms:

The poem opens with a line that doens't have punctuation (enjambment): it runs over to the next. Not only that but the next line has a different kind of meter. Poets use this mechanism together with enjabment to attract attention to certain words. For example in the fourth line, the word "meet" is emphasized. It is an important word in the poem because it is the premise of the entire poem. Opposites "meet" in this woman. Just as enjabment and a change in meter are joined as mechanisms in this poem, the unlikely pair of darkness and light meet in this woman. 

Also, this poem makes use of alliteration, the repeating of the first letter of a word to get an easy-reading effect. Look at the second line: "Of cloudless climes and starry skies."

imagery:

Lord Byron describes a night (associated with darkness) with bright stars (light) and compares this woman to that night. She brings together these opposites in her beauty and creates a "tender light." Not a light like the daytime, since he describes that as gaudy (showy in a vulgar way), but a light that "heaven" doesn't even honor the daytime with.

Byron describes light and dark coming together in her appearance (or "aspect"), as in her dark hair ("tress") and the light complextion of her face. But her also says they meet in her eyes. The eyes are often associated with a person's soul, and reveal the heart. So he is suggesting that opposites meet in her soul as well. 

Note also, that Byron says that if this darkness and lightness wouldn't be in the right proportions ("One shade the more, one ray the less"), her beauty wouldn't be completly ruined as you might expect. He says that she would only be "half impaired," and thus still half magnificent.

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ABOUT THE PAINTING:

the artist:

Sandro Botticelli was a Florentine (Italian) painter, and well-known and succesfull during his career. The name "Botticelli" mean "little barrel" in Italian. It was originally the nickname of his older brother. For some reason it must have rubbed off on Sandro.

Although Botticelli's career was a succes, near the end of his life the High Renaissance style emerged and he was old news. He had no real followers except for the son of his own master. Botticelli died in obscurity but after his death his position returned when Ruskin and some Pre-

Raphaelites announced interest in his works. 

the painting:
It's clear from the title of the painting that it represents the birth of the goddess Venus. During the Renaissance in Italy, the people tried to recapture the glory of ancient Rome and mythology became very popular, even among the educated common folk. They were so convinced of the wisdom of the ancient Romans that they believed the myths must contain some profound truth.
The scenario of the painting is clear: Venus comes to life from a seashell and it brought to shore by wind-gods. An Hour or a Nymph is waiting for Venus to get to shore, and is ready to receive her with a robe.
Notice however that Venus' neck is strangely unnatural and her face is unproportionally small. Not only that but her shoulders are oddly steep, and her left arm is sort of pinned on to her body rather than being truly connected. Also, Botticelli goes against the style of the time by making the figures not solid models who are grounded, but rather outlined figures who float on the foreground.
But Botticelli uses these irregularities to emphasize her beauty. She is so beautiful you wouldn't even really notice the imperfections. Botticelli's composition also makes Venus seem extremly delicate and tender, like a true gift from Heaven. 

Analysis

“She Walks in Beauty” is written in iambic tetrameter, “a meter commonly found in hymns and associated with ‘sincerity’ and ‘simplicity’” (Moran 2). Byron’s chosen meter conveys to the reader both his purity of intent (there is but one subject for this poem, the lady’s virtuous beauty) and a poetic parallel to his subject (the lady’s beauty arises from her purity or simplicity of nature). It is an astonishingly chaste poem given its author’s reputation for licentiousness, lust, and debauchery.
Byron wrote this poem about Mrs. Wilmot, his cousin Robert Wilmot’s wife. It echoes Wordsworth’s earlier “The Solitary Reaper” (1807) in its conceit: the speaker’s awe upon seeing a woman walking in her own aura of beauty. While ostensibly about a specific woman, the poem extends to encompass the unobtainable and ideal. The lady is not beautiful in herself, but she walks in an aura of Beauty (Flesch 1). In contrast to popular conceptions, her beauty is not easily described as brilliant or radiant, but it is also dark “like the night” (line 1) However, “all that’s best of dark and bright” (line 3) meet in her face and eyes, suggesting that while she walks in a dark beauty, she is herself a brighter, more radiant beauty. To further convolute the image, the woman is described as having “raven tress[es]” (black hair) (line 9), connecting her to the darkness, while the “nameless grace” (line 8) “lightens” her face—possibly a play on the word, meaning the grace alights on her face, but also including the brighter aspect of lightening her countenance.

Indeed, the beauty of Wilmot is found largely in its balance of opposites: the darkness she walks in (and her dark hair) counterpoise her fair skin and the bright pureness of her soul. In this lady, the “tender light” is “mellowed,” in contrast to the “gaudy day” which has only the glaring sun and no shade to soften its radiance. Thus the lady’s simple, inner perfection produces a beauty superior to nature itself.
This grace is “nameless” in that it is ineffable. It is a common idea to say that there is no way for human word or verse to encompass it, so it must remain nameless even as the speaker perceives it clearly. Prose cannot come close to a description of this abstract beauty, so the speaker must attempt it in verse.

These issues raise a concern that the woman seems so pure because she is so simple; she wears her thoughts directly on her face, and she shows no evidence of discrimination of better from worse. Her mind is “at peace with all below” (line 17), and she loves innocently. If she is beautiful like the night, perhaps her mind truly is like a sky without any clouds of trouble or confusion. In contrast, she has been able to spend her days in “goodness,” the tints in her face glowing like stars in the sky, small punctuations in a vast emptiness above.
Some critics maintain, however, that the glimpse of Wilmot which inspired this poem was afforded Byron at a funeral; thus the images of darkness which surround the lady can be drawn from the mourning clothes she and those around her wear. This beauty is “like the night” because this time of spiritual darkness—mourning the passing of a loved one—does not detract from her beauty, but instead accentuates it.
In any case, in this woman dark and light are reconciled. This reconciliation is made possible by the main sources of the lady’s beauty: her mind “at peace with all below” and her “heart whose love is innocent” (line 18). By possessing a genial mind and innocent heart, the lady can bring the beauty of both darkness and light out and together without contradiction; her purity softens the edges of the contrasts.
Byron eschews erotic or physical desire in this poem, preferring instead to express the lady’s beauty without professing his own emotions. He restricts his physical descriptions of her to her eyes, brow, hair, and smiles. Her loveliness has to do with her innocence and her “days in goodness spent” (line 16), whether it results from her virtue or simply from the poet’s imagination of that virtue. After all, if we bracket the likely autobiographical element of the poem, we do not know whether the speaker has caught anything more than a few moments’ glimpse of a beautiful woman walking by.

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