poet throws a veil of mystery around his poem by assigning it to the remote past, and by removing the only other characters that have entered into the story, "the figures of the beadsman and the nurse, who live just long enough to share in the wonders of the night and to die quietly of old age when their parts are over "; as, indeed, was foretold in ll. 22-23 and 155-156. The castle is left to the drunken baron and his warrior-guests, while the lovers are 'fled away into the storm.' ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE The note of sadness, distinct in this poem, is partly explained when we consider the date of its production, and the events preceding it. Consumption was hereditary in the family of Keats, and during the latter months of 1818 the poet had been witness to the struggles of his brother against that disease. The brother died in December, and doubtless about this time Keats began to foresee the same fate for himself, although the malady did not define itself until a year later. This ode, written in the early part of 1819, when the writer's sorrow was at its height, furnishes an interesting companion picture to Shelley's Skylark. For another contrast between lark and nightingale, see L'Alleg. (41-44) and Il Pens. (56–58). I. The stanzas of the poem are uniform. What is their metre and rhyme system? 4. Lethe. For this river of forgetfulness, see Cl. D. or Cl. M., p. 81. 6. too happy. The poet's heartache comes from the sensitive and exquisite sympathy he feels with the bird; his sympathetic and sensuous pleasure has in its intensity become pain. 7-10. That . . . ease. Meaning of 'that' and syntax of the clause? The correct answer will make clear the meaning. 7. Dryad. Why does he call the bird a Dryad? See Cl. D. or Cl. M., p. 77. II-IV, 1. 34. 13. Flora, the goddess of flowers. See Cl. D. or Cl. M., pp. 73, 89. 14. Provençal, a district in southern France noted for its wines and for the merry out-of-door life of its people, its open-air or 'sunburnt' mirth. See Eve of St. Agnes (292). 16. Hippocrene, a fountain of the Muses on Mt. Helicon. See Cl. M., p. 470. Explain the metonymy. 23-24. The weariness. groan. This view of the world is one often expressed by poets. Cf. Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey (52-53):· ... "the fretful stir : Unprofitable, and the fever of the world." 26. youth, evidently thinking of his brother. 31-34. Away retards. He here determines to forget the world, and to find the fairyland of the nightingale through the power of 'Poesy' rather than of wine. 32. Bacchus: see Cl. D. or Cl. M., p. 76. pards. For these animals, sacred to Bacchus, see note on Comus (444). IV, 1. 35-V. A description of the land of Poesy, home of the nightingale. 35. Already with thee. He suddenly imagines himself in that land. 39-40. Save... ways, as the swaying branches of the trees admit the fitful light. 43. embalmed darkness, darkness permeated by the balmy odor of the ... season's fragrance. What kind of figure? Throughout these lines note the appeal to the sense of smell. 50. The . . eves. Observe the onomatopoeia. VI-VIII. 51. Darkling, in the dark. I listen, coördinate with 'it seems rich.' for, inasmuch as (a subordinate conjunction). Its clause modifies 'seems rich.' 62. No. . . down. A fine example of a line inevitable in thought and grace. It recalls somewhat the idea of ll. 23-24. The stanza is beyond praise— replete with poetic touchstones. 65. found a path. Explain this beautiful metaphor. 67. alien corn, the wheat and barley which Ruth gleaned in the land of Boaz. See the book of Ruth ii. 3, 23. 68-70. The same . . . forlorn. In these lines the poet has penetrated to the heart of his fairyland. The chance word 'forlorn' awakens him into the real world. The last lines are unsurpassable in suggestion and charm. 75-80. Adieu sleep. In some respects these lines may be compared with the last stanza of The Lady of the Lake. 75. fades. Justify the figure. Observe the quiet close, and see note on Lyc. (186–193). ODE ON A GRECIAN URN The Grecian Urn and La Belle Dame Sans Merci have been called "the twin peaks" of Keats's verse. The subject of the ode was especially attractive to Keats, for no one had a deeper sympathy with the artistic spirit of Hellas than he. “I have loved,” he says, “the principle of beauty in all things"; and he recognized in the Greeks the most perfect portrayers of the beautiful. He was a devoted student of their plastic art through the specimens preserved in the British Museum. And from a comparison of these sculptures with engravings of others, he doubtless derived the conception of his Grecian Urn; for it has not been discovered that any single work of art stood as model. This, like most of Keats's other odes, was written in 1819. The metrical structure of its stanzas may profitably be compared with that of the Ode to a Nightingale. 1-10. 1-3. bride of quietness, foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian. Comment upon the figures and show how each applies to the Grecian Urn. 5-10. What . . . ecstasy. Note the subtle indirectness of the description. 5. leaf-fring'd legend haunts. Notice the imagery of these words. 7. Tempe, a vale in Thessaly. 11-30. These lines furnish an admirable contrast between the shortness and decay of life and the abiding beauty of art. The creator of the urn has arrested his characters at a single significant moment of their lives. They accordingly live for us in permanent beauty and imaginative appeal. 11-12. those unheard Are sweeter. Explain. See INTRODUCTION, pp. lxix-lxxvi, on tone-color and melody in verse, and illustrate from this stanza. 13. sensual, here means physical or bodily. 18. winning near, approaching. 25. more happy love, happier even than the boughs or the melodist. Its anticipation is far more to be desired than the cloying realities of actual life (2930). 28. passion. Object of 'above.' 31-40. 31. sacrifice. The central figures of the urn appear to be engaged in a sacrificial procession. 38. little town, whose inhabitants have been caught by the hand of the artist and placed upon this urn. 41-50. 44-45. tease . . . eternity. The urn like eternity exhausts our powers of thought. 46-50. When... know. Again the permanence of art is emphasized — art that shall teach to future generations what was to Keats a cardinal doctrine, that Beauty is only another name for Truth, and that of all things she alone is imperishable. What lines of this ode are worthy to be accepted as poetic touchstones, and why? (See INTRODUCTION, p. cvi.) LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI La Belle Dame Sans Merci was written probably during the early part of 1819. The title, which is taken from an old French poem, seems early to have caught Keats's fancy, as is indicated by the use made of it in the Eve of St. Agnes, 1. 292. Keats's mystical ballad, however, is entirely his own invention, and is justly considered to be one of our best poetic revivals of medieval romanticism. Sidney Colvin, in his Life of Keats, says, "The union of infinite tenderness with a weird intensity, the conciseness and purity of the poetic form, the wild yet simple magic of the cadences, the perfect, inevitable union of sound and sense, make of La Belle Dame Sans Merci the masterpiece not only among the shorter poems of Keats, but even (if any single masterpiece must be chosen) among them all." As regards the poetic symbolism of the verses, Colvin continues: "Keats's ballad can hardly be said to tell a story; but rather sets before us, with imagery drawn from the medieval world of enchantment and knight-errantry, a type of the wasting power of love, when either adverse fate or deluded choice makes of love not a blessing but a bane. Every reader must feel how truly the imagery expresses the passion: how powerfully, through these fascinating old-world symbols, the universal heart of man is made to speak." SONNETS Though as a writer of sonnets Keats cannot compare with Milton in quality, or with Wordsworth in either quantity or quality, he probably ought to be ranked above most other writers of this form of verse, such as Mrs. Browning, Arnold, or Rossetti. His sonnets are mostly of the strict Italian type, described in the INTRODUCTION, p. lxxxvi. On first looking into Chapman's Homer As we have noted, Keats, though handicapped by lack of knowledge of the Greek language, had an intellectual and emotional sympathy with the spirit of Greek art and literature. On coming to London the young poet was accustomed to spend his evenings reading with his friend Cowden Clarke. One of the books they thus attacked was a borrowed copy of Chapman's Homer, which they read far into the night. On coming down to breakfast next morning, Clarke found awaiting him this sonnet, which Keats had written since leaving him a few hours before. This was sometime during the summer of 1815, when Keats was only twenty years of age, and had as yet done nothing to show his power as a poet. Yet the sonnet is not only his best, but is one of the best of all English sonnets. What are the 'realms of gold,' the western 'states,' 'kingdoms,' and 'islands' of 11. 1-4? Why 'fealty to Apollo'? Why 'deep-brow'd' (6)? 'Chapman' (8), poet and dramatist, was a contemporary of Shakespeare. The tribute which Keats pays him in this sonnet is well deserved, for his translations rank among the best in the English language. Cortez' (11). It was Balboa and not Cortez who discovered the Pacific; but as Mr. Colvin says, "What does it matter?" 'Darien' (14) refers to the Isthmus of Panama. On the Grasshopper and Cricket This sonnet was written December 30, 1816. Keats, Leigh Hunt, and Cowden Clarke were together one evening, when Hunt proposed that each of them should then and there write a sonnet upon some subject to be agreed upon. The topic chosen for their experiment was that of the grasshopper and the cricket. No better illustration can be found of the manner in which the true artist may invest the commonest things in nature with interest and poetic charm. Keats has here shown us that the beauty of a poem need not depend upon aloofness or splendor of subject. This was a lesson that Wordsworth constantly aimed to teach. MACAULAY HORATIUS Horatius is the first of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, a collection of four stirring ballads, published in 1842. In a preface to the Lays the poet states his grounds for believing that the early Romans once possessed a considerable volume of ballad-poetry, which, after being transformed into history, had been allowed to perish. As to Horatius, he says: "There can be little doubt that among those parts of early Roman history which had a poetic origin was the legend of Horatius Cocles. . . . The following ballad is supposed to have been made about a hundred and twenty years after the war which it celebrates, and just before the taking of Rome by the Gauls. The imaginary Roman author seems to have been an honest citizen, proud of the military glory of his country, sick of the disputes of factions, and much given to pining after good old times which had really never existed." As is shown by the heading of the poem, Macaulay supposes his "honest citizen" to have made this ballad about three hundred and sixty years after the founding of Rome, or 393 B.C. It need not detract from our enjoyment of the story to learn that there is little or no historic foundation for the legend of Horatius. As a matter of fact, according to the Roman historian, Tacitus, Porsena's expedition was entirely successful, and Rome passed for a time under the Etruscan yoke. The tale of Horatius and his two companions was no doubt fabricated to increase the patriotic ardor of the Romans, and to help them forget the chagrin of defeat. But the historical accuracy of the story. is a matter of only secondary importance. As Professor Morley says in his introduction to the Lays, "The songs of the people were free to suppress a great defeat and put in its place a myth of a heroic deed: some small fact serving as seed that shall grow and blossom out into a noble tale." I-II. Indicate the topic which these stanzas develop. 1. Lars, a title of honor given by Romans to the Etruscan kings. Porsena, king of Clusium, who, when summoned to the aid of Tarquinius Superbus, completely conquered Rome. See introduction to these notes. Clusium, the most important of the twelve cities of the Etruscan confederation, situated in the fertile valley of the river Clanis, a tributary of the Tiber. 2. Nine Gods, the nine great Etruscan gods, hurlers of the thunderbolt. 3. house of Tarquin. The family of Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh and last of the legendary kings of Rome, had been expelled from the city, in consequence of a brutal assault made upon Lucretia, a Roman matron, by Sextus, the second son of Tarquin. Porsena evidently considered this expulsion of the Tarquins a 'wrong' (1. 4), and led in this, the third attempt to restore them to power. ... 10. East north see note on 1. 23 below. 11. ride. Explain change of tense. What is the verse-form of this poem? How does it differ from that of The Ancient Mariner? (See notes on The Ancient Mariner and INTRODUCTION, pp. lv, xcii.) III-V. Give topics as before. 23. beech and pine: cf. among many other instances ll. 8, 12, and 20-22. This is one of the most marked characteristics of Macaulay's style, i.e. the preference for the definite and concrete instead of the general and abstract. 25. purple Apennine. Why 'purple'? 26. Volaterræ, one of the twelve cities of the Etruscan league, ‘lordly' because on the summit of a high and precipitous hill. 30. Populonia, the chief seacoast town of Etruria, situated on a high peninsula, near the island of 'Ilva' (Elba), and within sight of the large island of Sardinia. 34. Pisa, one of the twelve Etruscan cities situated on the bank of the river Arnus (Arno) a few miles from its mouth, and on a good harbor, hence ll. 34-37. 36. Massilia. Marseilles, in France. triremes. Meaning and derivation? 37. fairhaired slaves, evidently on their way from northern Gaul to the slave marts of Italy. 38. Clanis: see note on l. I. 40. Cortona. Still another of the twelve cities of the league, on a lofty hill about nine miles north of Lake Trasimene. VI-VIII. Give topics. 42-49. Tall... mere. Why this detail regarding the height of the oaks, the fatness of the stags, etc.? Show relation of this stanza to the next. 43. Auser. A small river formerly tributary of the Arno. See note 1. 34. Its channel has become diverted. The present name of the river is the Serchio. Why 'dark'? 45. Ciminian, a wooded mountain range extending from the Tiber southwest to the sea. 46. Clitum |