Two Types Of Art In John Keats’ Poem Ode On A Grecian Urn

Keats is trying to reconcile Classical and Romantic Art through the form of the poem and its theme.

Keats’s poem contains a number of paradoxes which are complex and appear to be impossible. One could conclude that Keats was commenting on the irreconciliable nature between Romantic and Classical Art. Closer inspection reveals that the paradoxes point in the opposite direction, namely, that Romantic versus Classical art are mutually dependent. The speaker of stanza 2 illustrates well the use of paradox as he examines the scene involving the piper’s lover. On the urn’s side, the lovers are immortalized. They are both frozen in the past and free of it. The piper sings his love song to a “fair” youth who lives beneath trees and “can’t leave” [the piper song] nor will the trees ever become bare (15-16). The speaker refers to the lover as “fair”, which is beautiful and youthful. The piper’s music and the nature of the tree where the lover sits are both part of the scene. Even the piper’s unheard melody is considered superior to a tune that can be heard because it allows imagination, which is another paradox. Art, by its very nature–capturing a singular moment and enscribing in stone—-is incomplete. The lover under the tree, however, will not be able to see or hear the colors of the autumn leaves. Nor will she hear anything but the note played by the piper in the moment that he was immortalized. The speaker admits that lovers will never be able to kiss, even if they are close to their goal. Although the scene seems beautiful, the finality of it is heartbreaking. The repeated “never” at line 17 confirms that the lovers will never be able to kiss. There is no way to make their love last; it remains unyielding, sever and affixed on the Grecian-urn side. Romantic and Classical arts seem to be on opposite sides of the spectrum, just like their lovers.

But there is a possibility of reconciliation. The speaker tells him to not be sad, even though the unfinished work is not satisfying and not perfect. The speaker tells the piper his beautiful, young lover is not going to fade, that he will love her forever, no matter how old she gets. The eternal nature in art doesn’t allow the lovers kissing each other, but it does preserve their beauty and youth, so that the will to love them will last forever. The speaker appears to find the compromise acceptable.

The scene is so close to perfection, but still unfulfilled. Near perfect means imperfect. Romantic art is marked by the incompletion of a scene, as well as its desire to be perfect. This complex paradox of immortal love combines both notions seamlessly.

Romantic art and Classical are also similar in terms of form and themes. Keats’ poems, though he is considered a Romantic writer, are very different from those of Wordsworth and Coleridge. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” does not exalt nature in any elaborate way, and it is clear that the poem’s goal was to bring man closer to nature. The poem instead celebrates beauty and art, which are often characteristics of Classical Poetry. Keats has created a strange form as he tries to bridge between Romantic poetry and Classical. Each stanza begins with a line and ends with a line. These lines are highly structured. Classical poems are characterized by this structure. The lines five to ten in each stanza depart from the rhyme scheme and follow a more random, but not entirely random, pattern. Romantic poets are known for their lack structure.

Keats, however, uses the content of his poems to bridge this gap. The speaker in stanza two, for example, encourages him to pipe music that is “not pleasing to the senses but rather endearing to the soul” (13-14). The first lines in this stanza are the most structured. Here, the piper has been told to refrain from playing according to logic or reasoning, and not for the “sensual eye” but rather, to satisfy their “spirit”. Keats has thus managed to reconcile Classical and Romantic structures in a way that is both strangely harmonious.

Keats succeeds in uniting the two artforms. The final lines are usually a summary of the poem, or its conclusion. This is where you can find the most accessible theme. Keats, it is said, wanted the ending couplet from “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, to be a controversial one. Saying “Beauty, truth and beauty” is a contradiction to Romantic philosophy which emphasizes substance over beauty. You must identify who the speaker addresses in order to determine a theme. There are many possibilities.

The context would suggest that the last two lines of the poem are a message sent by the urn to its reader. In fact, the speaker calls the urn “thou” in the entire poem and directly before the last couplet (a friend to man to whom you sayest) on line 48. The speaker asks questions to the urn and explores its different scenes throughout the poem. The urn could very well have responded to the speaker with the two last lines. The urn’s adage “Beauty Is Truth, Truth Beauty” could be a message to the reader. If so, the idea of art should teach and enlighten. Art is therefore a source of inspiration and enlightenment. The urn, in the couplet at the end, seems to be a speaker who is trying to convey that art, as a means of illumination, is important.

The speaker could address the urn in the last two lines. If the speaker is addressing the urn with the final lines, then they appear patronizing. After such an in depth and thoughtful analysis of the philosophical properties of the object, the speaker reduces the complexity of what he has found to a simple mantra: “Beauty’s truth, truth is beauty,” with the implied message that the urn doesn’t “need” to understand more. The speaker seems dismissive of the urn’s artwork and to think that beauty is superficial. The speaker, if he is speaking to the urn in question, seems to be recognizing both the superficiality of beauty and the triviality that art places on beauty. The speaker appears to be telling the vase to “just look pretty” – if art’s truth is beauty. If this is true, the speaker can criticize the art for being superficial and insignificant, but also realize that art is meant to depict beauty and superficiality. This almost condescending view of formal art is more indicative of Romantic notions.

Keats’ poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” offers both the Romantic as well as the Classical conception of art. The reader can choose which reading he prefers, but he may not have to. It is the ambiguous ending that bridges Romantic and Classical arts. It is unfair to the poem to assume that it must be the urn in the final line or the person speaking. Romantic poetry and Classical music are again unified in a bizarre chorus of voices when a reader assumes the urn as well as the speaker. Keats argues that by marrying Romantic art with Classical, he is demonstrating that no art form is more or less correct than another, and that opposites do exist in harmony.