To Autumn - John Keats

Question 1

Ending - To Autumn

Answer 1

ends on a high note of a crescendo of sound and light/life, filling the reader with hope even though autumn is ending.
“gathering swallows twitter in the skies” “full grown lambs loud bleat” “Hedge-crickets sing” - beauty of nature

Question 1

Personification of nature - To Autumn

Answer 1

“thee sitting careless on a granary floor”
“they hair soft-lined”
emphasises presence as a conscious thing

• enjambment is used to present the passage of time “may find/thee sitting careless”

Question 2

In its prime - To Autumn

Answer 2

“plump the hazel shells with a sweet kernel”
“fill all fruit with ripeness to the core”
life is reaching its prime/perfect maturity/ripeness. Autumn is something to be desired

Question 3

Bleak - To Autumn

Answer 3

“soft-dying day” “wailful choir the small gnats mourn” - life is leaving, change of attitudes over time. A distant sense of loneliness
fleeting end of day, melancholy in the celebration.

Question 4

Joyful tone initially - To Autumn

Answer 4

shows love “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!” - ode. Expresses the poet’s/speaker’s love for nature and the season + changing of seasons.
Exclamation mark shows emphasis
Expressed as something to be lavished - when spoken aloud the sibilant s’s slow the pace. He adresses autumn directly

Question 5

Lazy yet providing - To Autumn

Answer 5

“drows’d with the fume of poppies” (opium)
lethargy. Numbness akin to death in a way
“while thy hook spares the next swath” - provides everyone with good and therefore life. The job is difficult - sibilant s’s and repeated th’s slow down the spoken poem, emphasising Autumn’s unbothered nature - he is removing life yet seems to not care about it.

Question 6

Passage of time - To Autumn

Answer 6

“thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours” - leaving in stanza 2. represents autumn. Repetition of hours emphasises the tedious nature of it - however it is still appreciated. Can be seen as repulsive - gothic in a certain way, final ebb of life as winter starts
“For summer has o’erbrimmed their clammy cells” - overstayed its welcome - just like the poem. Standard odes have 10 lines, here Keats has added an extra line - expresses the theme he is trying to get across.

Question 7

Context - To Autumn

Answer 7

• Keats is a romantic poet inspired by nature
• written in 1819 when he was dying of tuberculosis
• inspired by a walk in the countryside with his friend Charles Brown on an Autumn day
• Is an ode
• Keats lost all his family by age 15