Language and style

Here we address the language and the style of the poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats. We focus on the following aspects of language and style.

Playing with the language

The poet is very playful with language in this poem, starting with the title which is “Ode on a Grecian Urn”. Normally, we would expect the ode to be “to a Grecian Urn”. However, as the poem unfolds we realise that the urn itself has painted an ode on it; it is an ode to past, art, beauty and eternity. All its images are a praise to the topics mentioned above.

Within the poem, the author plays with language by using metaphors and personifications. The urn is never mentioned by this name in the poem; instead, it is referred to by using multiple metaphors which give the object human attributes: bride of quietness” (l. 1), “foster-child of silence and slow time” (l. 2), “Sylvan historian” (l. 3), and “Cold Pastoral” (l. 45).

This gives the poem a slight ambiguity as, at a first read, one might not realise that the poet is depicting images painted on the urn.

Another way the poet plays with language and creates ambiguity is when he uses a direct quotation:

“"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."” (ll. 49-50)

We cannot say for sure whether this quote belongs to the personified urn or the poet himself. However, most critics believe that the poet intended the citation to be interpreted as belonging to the urn.

Tense of the verbs

The poem is mostly written in the present tense. It is in the “present” that the speaker comes across the urn and depicts it. Furthermore, as the images described are forever engraved in the urn, they also become eternally present. Nothing changes and all the characters are stuck performing the same acts:

“She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!” (ll. 19-20)

Another important tense is future tense, which is also used to show the per...