Ode on a Grecian Urn (all tasks)

Ode on a Grecian Urn notes (keep scrolling for in depth analysis)

·         Speaker is envious/mad: everything is frozen, nothing dies “Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed 

Your leaves” but then “cold pastoral” AMBIVALENCE, opposing emotions

·         Contrast, urn is frozen but images/nature is dynamic

·         Mentions nature a lot, like in other poems

·         Man of words admiring other forms of art (images)

·         Referrs to Fanny

·         Last stanza: compares outside world of nature to that represented in the art

·         Poem about life and death. Life vs art

Elements we should draw on our urn notes:

Gods

Mortals

Struggle

Maiden (woman) pretty, young

Youth beneath tree, spring

Love, kiss  

What elements of my poem do you think you understand more after completing the urn task?

·        Images: all is connected in the cylindrical urn, everything is somehow connected.

·         Language: by drawing the images, the language has to be thoroughly explored and understood

·         Metaphors: highlighted the images we had to draw, enhanced the understanding of the images

·         Sounds: had to be translated into images (connotation of the language made us draw the images in a particular way (e.g.:romanticist way))

·         Synesthetic images: INVOLVES A MIXTURE OF THE SENSES (e.g.: sound and taste) cocktail of images that appeal to one’s senses “heard melodies are sweet” sense of involvement is greater if we’re being encouraged to feel more, Keats uses many FEELINGS

Has the urn task raised any questions or doubts about my poem that you would want answered? What are they?

·         What elements are extrapolated from the urn/are part of Keats’ imagination?

·         Did he reject sex? There seems to be the thought that the anticipation of the physical moment is better than the act

What skills were important for you to use in order to complete the task successfully?

·         Team work

·         Division of tasks

·         Efficient communication

·         Listening to what people are better at doing

·         Patience

·         Time-management

o   Purple: my critical partner’s and my thoughts

o   Red: done by other people

Task 2: Further close Analysis (notes on Ode to a Grecian Urn)

STANZA 1

• ·       1^st line: Why is the Grecian Urn compared to a “still unravished bride of quietness”? STILL unravished, lack of motion, time CONCEPT EXPLORED IN THE POEM.
• ·       “unravished”, urn is pure, time has not defected her, it doesn’t age
• ·       3^rd line: “sylvan historian” historian: records scenes from a culture long ago. It is “sylvan” (of the forest): bored with leaves and decorated with items from nature, allusions to a “flowery tale”, the gentleness of the term. It is paradoxical that a bride of QUIETNESS is TELLING stories more sweetly (gentleness of the term) than our rhyme (the poem)
• ·       Gentleness of the terms previously discussed with WILD ecstasy (unravished bride, sylvan historian, flowery tale, sweet)
• ·       Lines 8-10: changing Point of View, starts to imagine things (more participant, more active, more excited): through repetition of rhetorical questions, short questions

STANZA 2

• ·       Lines 1-4: contrast of ideal and real “heard melodies”; Keats prefers the “unheard melodies”, the unreal, what is imagined CHARACTERISTIC OF ROMANTICISM. Paradoxical since he is captivated by the material urn. But what is most charming is what's imagined after seeing the urn's images, "the unheard melodies". Imagination is a way to escape reality for the speaker. Reality keeps dragging him back from imagination "-yet do not grieve!". The dash is the separation from imagination and what is real.
• ·       “Unheard pipes” is an oxymoron, it is contrasting. Reflection of the overall ambivalence the speaker feels towards the art.

• ·       Lines 5-10 we begin to sense a negative undercurrent to the ideal, frozen time. Language use: “never, never canst thou kiss” repetition of NEVER and NOT. “thou canst NOT leave” “thou hast NOT thy bliss”.
• ·       Line 8-10 (“yet do not grieve!”): he tries to change the tone but is still using negative language “do not grieve” “she cannot fade”. Thw words create the sense of negativity (what cannot be done rather than what can be done)
• ·       “Sensual ear” contrasts with sweetness in stanza 1 (unravished bride, sylvan historian, flowery tale)
• ·       Youth and vitality of the couple contrasts with the immortality of the urn and the implicit lack of life (they have been frozen in time so long they aren’t really living)
• ·       “Nor ever can those trees be bare” youth is immortal, so it’s stops being full of life (there is no cycle of life, paradoxical). Contrast of youth/vitality vs. immortality/frozen death. Part of the dynamism is the change in life, the cycle of things. Is life really life if it is immortal? No.
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THE PYRAMID ACTIVITY

Formation of generalizations: ideas can be kinked to arrive to a common theme
Group work helped a lot since it allowed us to realize we all arrived to the same general themes, while it demonstrated how each one of us had been more impressed by one example of each one of the general themes
I think leadership was a key concept in the activity since it was important for us to listen to each other and co operate. Being a leader meant acknowledging the need to allow everyone to speak up.