in a drear nighted december Flashcards
(11 cards)
summary of first stanza
he looks at a forzen sleety tree with bare branches and thinks about how the tree is just fine. It is not at all upset in its curreht state even thouigh it once had beautiful leaves and the reasns this is possible is that the tree has no memory of that better time. None the wiser the tree is cinetent and it will bloom again in the spring without fear of lossing the leaves and the cycle continues./
summary of second stanza
the speakers attention turns tio a forzen brook. In a similar way, he considers how lucky the brook is that it has no memory of the happy time when it once flowed freely.Even encased in an icy prison the brook is perfectly happy vbeacuse of the “sweet forgetting”. The brook has no memory if oppollo in his hot “summer look”. so it ius happy even in a less comfortable situation.
summary of final stanza
the speaker laments that people donyt have this ability to foregt too. Instead we are all doomed to writhe in the pain of remebering happy times before our heartbreak and there is nothing we can do to ease the pain
“in drear-nighted December Too Happy, happy tree”
“in drear-nighted December Too happy, happy brook”
plosives-dull depressing scene
‘d’ sound ellongates the word as well as the assonance, making the sentence longer to read, reflecting the length and time of winter.
“too happy, happy” transcends the previously dull setting, pathetic fallacy, the tree is happy reguardless of the weather. Anadiplsosis happiness transcends the clauses and the seasons.
“thy branches ne’er remember their green felicity”
“thy bubblings ne’er remember Apollos summer look”
personifies the tree, the tree is happy because it is ignorant of the summer.
Apollo is the god of the sun and summer
“but with a sweet forgetting they stay their cyrstal fretting, Never never petting about the frozen time”
idyllic imagery
“sweet forgetting” oxymoron, synthesia, highlights the pleasure that follows with fogetting-mortality early in Keats life.
“frozen time” oxymoron, time is contnuous
juxtaposition of “fretting” and “petting”
“the feel of not to feel”
“earth feels no sadness”
paradox-human nature we ignore what we do not want to address. keats uses vivid natural imagery (frozen brooks, barren trees) to reflect external desolation, contrasting it with the internal emotional strife. The imagery then shifts from the physical world to the abstract realm of human memory and suffering.
context
the poem is closely tied to John Keats personal experinces of loss and grief. By the time he wrote the poem in late 1817, keats had already faced significant family tragedy. His father, Thomas Keats died in 1804 following a riding accident and his mother passed away from tuberculosis in 1810. At the time of writing keats was caring for his younger brother Tom who was greatly ill with tuberculosis at the time of writing and would die shortly after, decemeber 1818.
poem structure
the poem consists of three stanzas each with siz lines (sestet) it follows a consistent ABABCC rhyme scheme creating a lyrical and reflective tone. the poem is written in iambic tretrameter, the steady rhythm mirrors nature and the inevitability of time.
“the boughs are bare” “The brook is dumb” “the flower and leaf are gone”
these images symbolise the barrenness of winter and the transcience of life. the stillness and silence of nature reflect the emotional stagnation of grief.
tone
a somber and reflective tone “drear” “sadness”. there is subtle alliteration throughout, enhancing the lyrical nature of the peom
