John Keats’ use of imagery in ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’

John Keats’ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ is one of the odes of Keats which is full of imagery to describe an urn. Keats is called an escapist- he has a tendency to escape from reality into an imaginary world for the sake of being free from the bitter real life. Keats is a man experienced from practically cruel world, from various sources. Whenever he saw in British museum an urn on whose  surface were depicted or carved many nice pictures, he fell into his desired imaginary world for sometimes, and thought that imagination was better than the reality. Later, in order to describe the urn, lives of beings, and the surroundings, Keats uses a number of images that depict some vivid pictures in our mind. At this moment, we are suitable to look into the imagery in Ode on a Grecian Urn.

            Before going to detailed discussion, at first, we are to know ‘what is imagery?’. The answer is that images, plural of image, are collectively called imagery, and image is a picture in mind created by description in words, just after listening or reading.

            At the very first, Keats uses an excellent image by a metaphor in ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ to reveal the exact nature of the urn-

            ‘Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness’.

Just reading this ‘unravish’d bride’, a picture of a bride, sitting and waiting for her wedding, wearing the marriage-dress with her nicety, purity and beauty is depicted in our mind. This image has been used to utter the purity and beauty of the urn on the earth through ages.

We find another image indicating the urn-

            ‘Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

             A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme.’

It means that the urn can express tales with the depiction on its surface better than the historians can do with their writings.

             The ‘leaf fringed legend’ is also an image which indicates that the urn is decorated with various scenes, especially with trees of woods-

            ‘What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape’.

            Again, at the end of the first stanza, the poet creates some images for the pictures on the urn with some rhetorical questions which are vivid and passionate-

            ‘What men of gods are these? What maidens loth?

             What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

             What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

There is another image of a lover stooping to kiss his beloved-

            ‘Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

             Though winning near the goal-’

Seeing the boughs full of leaves, and melodist piping songs, Keats thinks that the spring of the boughs will be and the melodist will pipe songs forever, but he himself is suffering the distress, misery and frustration, and will also continue to suffer. He says-

            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;

            In another image, a continuing vivid picture is depicted in our mind. There is a procession going towards a place of worship led by an unknown (mysterious) priest who leads a young calf for the sacrifice. The calf of up-raised head is decorated with garlands of flowers. He says-

            Who are these coming to the sacrifice,

            To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

There is another image of a town of empty people situated by a river or a sea shore or a mountain in a haste morning. There is no soul to tell why the streets are silent, because all have gone to a distant altar to worship. Keats says-

            ‘what little town by river or sea shore

             Or mountain built with peaceful citadel,’

However the silence of the town will be forever, because it is a work of art and imagination. Thus Ode on a Grecian Urn also expresses the difference between imagination and reality, between art and reality.

            At the last stanza of the poem, the poet addresses the urn as ‘Fair attitude’ that contains marble men and over-excited maidens, and ‘cold pastoral’ because, the urn  is not alive, and about the rural.

            In conclusion, we may say that John Keats’ use of imagery is very brilliant, and it has a great effect on the main theme. By imagery, he wants to show the superiority of imagination and art rather than reality. For this reason, his use of imagery has been more effective.