Thursday, January 3, 2013

In “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, is Keats’ use of apostrophe an effective method for conveying the speaker’s emotions toward the subject?

Keats's use of apostrophe in "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is an effective method of conveying the speaker's deeply felt emotions.
In apostrophe, a writer speaks to a person who is not there or to an inanimate object. In either case, someone or something that can not respond is addressed. In this poem, Keats speaks to an urn.
An artist from Greek antiquity painted a beautiful scene on the urn the speaker gazes at. The scene depicts young people happily going to a spring festival. The speaker sees leaves on the trees, a youth just about to kiss his beloved, people with musical instruments, and a heifer being led out for sacrifice.
In my interpretation of this poem, the speaker's imagination is so lit up by this scene that he too wants to be one of these young Greek people on the urn, forever frozen at a moment when the weather is beautiful. He too wants to be forever young and happy and in love. He longs to get into the skin of the urn, so to speak.
Speaking directly to the urn as if it is alive is an effective way to show how much the picture on urn attracts him and draws him in. It reveals how deeply emotionally connected he feels to the scene. He identifies so strongly with the urn that, at the end, it seems as if they urn is actually speaking to him, and he quotes what the urn says.
Before that, addressing the urn allows him to express the full extent of his deep feelings, which reach a high point in the third stanza. There he addresses the urn and elements of the picture on it as "happy," using exclamation points and repeating the word "happy" over and over, perhaps to emphasize how deeply joyful the urn makes him:

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!


Addressing the urn as if it is a human conveys strongly the sense of intimacy the speaker feels with the object. It strongly communicates, in my opinion, his deep longing to merge with the picture on the urn.

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