ode on a melancholy

Question 1

context

Answer 1

• 1819
• keats himself had melancholy experience of life due to the loss of his parents and brother before the age of 15

Question 2

form

Answer 2

• Horatian Ode= written as private meditations on personal issues
• visible 3 stanza form
• use of iambic pentameter, which, like Shakespeare, he uses to explore deep personal feelings, namely depression

Question 3

overview

Answer 3

• deeply philosophical poem explores relationship between joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure
• explore transient nature of human emotions by confronting melancholy and finding the meaning behind it
• presents the seemingly innate beauty of intense suffering in Ode on Melancholy; through natural imagery and the deification of Melancholy
• emphasises the vivid and fulfilling view of life that Melancholy provides, and through direct address and religious and natural imagery, Keats calls on the reader to accept suffering and recognise that beauty and pain are forever entwined

Question 4

nature

Answer 4

• descriptions of nature that emulate the intensity of the sadness the reader is supposedly experiencing
• speaker commands the reader through repetitive grammar of “No, no, go not” to not end their unbearable suffering through the means of “Wolf’s-bane”, “nightshade” and “yew-berries”
  = repetition reinforces notion that ‘Melancholy’ is an inescapable part of life and that the sufferer must embrace this to reap the benefits
  = repeated naming of poisonous plants conveys that suffering is natural and cannot be avoided by suicide
• descriptions are ironically vibrant
  = “ruby grape” association w illness and deterioration
  = was viewed in mediaeval times as an imbalance of the body’s humours leading to a brooding disposition and emotional distress
  = as a junior doctor, Keats must’ve been aware of this, and chose to show beauty and pain intertwined through the natural imagery of death
• ‘globed peonies’
  = must feed sorrow with beauty of nature’s treasures= sensuous imagery
  = peonies personified as globed= hold life and beauty within like a human
  = complex and detailed with beauty on the inside= explore emotional depth
  = flower will eventually die like human life= bound to fade as they derive from an ephemeral world

Question 5

beauty of melancholy

Answer 5

• inherent beauty within Melancholy, a preciousness he attributes to sadness= if we choose to “drown” such emotions, we are denying ourselves these intense feelings of Melancholy that are almost spiritual to Romantics
• speaker encourages us to “glut thy sorrow on a morning rose”
  = suggesting we should enjoy the bursts of sadness that the reader experiences
• alternatively, Keats may be conveying another Romantic ideal of indulging in nature (“glut”) to allow self introspection
  = seeing things through the lens of Melancholy allows us to feel more acutely and experience a different perspective
  = allusions can be drawn here to Keat’s own personal struggles w depression and insecurity, which he attempted to see as inspiration
  = as well as convincing the reader of the necessity of Melancholy, he is also trying to convince himself that it is something galvanising

Question 6

tone

Answer 6

• sad and pensive mood of deep reflection and sad contemplation
• rejects earlier poet Coleridge who advocated for drugs as a solution to depression
  = beloved the soul must accept its anguish in order to stay awake

Question 7

death

Answer 7

• ‘yew’ is a dark plant planted in graveyards
• ‘lethe’= hellenistic lang= greek mythological allusion to a river whose waters cause forgetfulness= a river in the underworld where souls are thought to drink its waters to erase their memories of life on Earth
  = forgetfulness links to attitudes to suicide via intoxication as keats friend and poet Thomas Chatterton killed himself @ 17
  = motif of death which contrasts to stanza 2 imagery of ‘cloud’ and ‘rainbow’
  = happiness and sadness are intertwined= death is overhanging in fleeting moments of joy
• “Proserpine” is symbolic of the relationship between suffering and pleasure as the goddess spent half her life in the Underworld only to emerge for spring
• imagery of underworld and mythology exposes Keats’ personal interest in the classics in his studies in Enfield, and may also demonstrate Shakespeare’s influence on Keats, as he too referenced Greek mythology in his works

Question 8

transience

Answer 8

• ‘beauty must die’
  = components of life are transient, intense yet short and cant be maintained forever
  = personifies melancholy as a woman= her beauty isn’t forever as she will age and eventually die