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Unit 6: Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

the urn is a “sylvan historian” as it records a pastoral scene from long ago. (“Sylvan” means Notes
anything pertaining to forests or woods.) This scene tells a story (“legend”) in pictures framed
with leaves (“leaf-fring’d”)—a story that the urn tells more attractively with its images than
Keats does with his pen. Keats wonders if the scene is set either in Arcady or Tempe. Tempe is
a valley in Thessaly, Greece—between Mount Olympus and Mount Ossa—that is favoured by
Apollo, the god of poetry and music. Arcady is Arcadia, a scenic region in the Peloponnesus (a
peninsula making up the southern part of Greece) where inhabitants live in carefree simplicity.
Keats wonders whether the images he sees represent gods or humans. And, he asks, who are the
reluctant (“loth”) maidens and what is the activity taking place?
Stanza 2
Using oxymoron and paradox to open the second stanza, Keats praises the silent music coming
from the timbrels and pipes and considers it far more pleasing than the audible music of real
life, for the music from the urn is for the spirit. Keats then notes that the young man playing the
pipe beneath trees must always continue to be an etched figure on the urn. Like the leaves on the
tree, this young man is fixed in time. They are ever green and will never die. Keats also says that
the bold young lover (who may be the piper or another person) can never embrace the maiden
next to him even though he is very close to her. Still, Keats says, the young man should not
grieve, as his lady love will continue to be beautiful forever, and their love—although
unfulfilled—will continue through all eternity.
Stanza 3

Keats addresses the trees, calling them “happy, happy boughs” as they will never shed their
leaves. He then addresses the young piper, calling him “happy melodist” as his songs will also
continue forever. Also, the young man’s love for the maiden will remain forever “warm and
still to be enjoy’d / For ever panting, and for ever young. . . .” In contrast, Keats says, the love
between a woman and a man in the real world is imperfect, as it brings sorrow and pain and
desire that cannot be fully quenched. The lover comes away with a “burning forehead, and a
parching tongue.”
Stanza 4
Keats inquires about the images of individuals approaching an altar to sacrifice a “lowing”
(mooing) cow, one that has never borne a calf, on a green altar. Do these simple folk come from
a little town on a river, a seashore, or a mountain topped by a peaceful fortress. Wherever the
town is, it will be empty forever as all of the town’s inhabitants are here participating in the
festivities depicted on the urn. Like the other figures on the urn, townspeople are frozen in time
and cannot escape the urn and go back to their houses.
Stanza 5
In the third stanza, John Keats addresses the urn as an “attic shape.” Attic here refers to Attica, a
region of east-central ancient Greece in which Athens was the main city. Here shape refers to the
urn. So, attic shape is an urn that was crafted in ancient Attica. The poet says that the urn is
beautiful, and is adorned with “brede” (braiding, embroidery) depicting marble women and
men enacting a scene in the tangle of forest tree branches and weeds. As individuals look upon
the scene, they think about it carefully as they would ponder eternity trying so hard to understand
its meaning that they exhaust themselves of thought. Keats calls the scene a “cold pastoral!” in
part as it is made of cold, unchanging marble and in part, maybe, because it frustrates the poet
with its unfathomable mysteries, as does eternity. Keats was suffering from tuberculosis during
this time. This disease had earlier killed his brother, and he was no doubt much occupied with
thoughts of eternity. Keats was also passionately in love with a young woman, Fanny Brawne,
but was not able to act conclusively on his feelings—although she reciprocated his love—
because he thought his dubious financial situation and his lower social status stood in the way.

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