Part 18 (2/2)
l. 51. _Darkling._ Cf. _The Eve of St. Agnes_, l. 355, note.
l. 61. _Thou . . . Bird._ Because, so far as we are concerned, the nightingale we heard years ago is the same as the one we hear to-night.
The next lines make it clear that this is what Keats means.
l. 64. _clown_, peasant.
l. 67. _alien corn._ Transference of the adjective from person to surroundings. Cf. _Eve of St. Agnes_, l. 16; _Hyperion_, iii. 9.
ll. 69-70. _magic . . . forlorn._ Perhaps inspired by a picture of Claude's, 'The Enchanted Castle,' of which Keats had written before in a poetical epistle to his friend Reynolds--'The windows [look] as if latch'd by Fays and Elves.'
PAGE 112. l. 72. _Toll._ To him it has a deeply melancholy sound, and it strikes the death-blow to his illusion.
l. 75. _plaintive._ It did not sound sad to Keats at first, but as it dies away it takes colour from his own melancholy and sounds pathetic to him. Cf. _Ode on Melancholy_: he finds both bliss and pain in the contemplation of beauty.
ll. 76-8. _Past . . . glades._ The whole country speeds past our eyes in these three lines.
NOTES ON THE ODE ON A GRECIAN URN.
This poem is not, apparently, inspired by any one actual vase, but by many Greek sculptures, some seen in the British Museum, some known only from engravings. Keats, in his imagination, combines them all into one work of supreme beauty.
Perhaps Keats had some recollection of Wordsworth's sonnet 'Upon the sight of a beautiful picture,' beginning 'Praised be the art.'
PAGE 113. l. 2. _foster-child._ The child of its maker, but preserved and cared for by these foster-parents.
l. 7. _Tempe_ was a famous glen in Thessaly.
_Arcady._ Arcadia, a very mountainous country, the centre of the Peloponnese, was the last stronghold of the aboriginal Greeks. The people were largely shepherds and goatherds, and Pan was a local Arcadian G.o.d till the Persian wars (c. 400 B.C.). In late Greek and in Roman pastoral poetry, as in modern literature, Arcadia is a sort of ideal land of poetic shepherds.
PAGE 114. ll. 17-18. _Bold . . . goal._ The one thing denied to the figures--actual life. But Keats quickly turns to their rich compensations.
PAGE 115. ll. 28-30. _All . . . tongue._ Cf. Sh.e.l.ley's _To a Skylark_:
Thou lovest--but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
ll. 31 seq. Keats is now looking at the other side of the urn. This verse strongly recalls certain parts of the frieze of the Parthenon (British Museum).
PAGE 116. l. 41. _Attic_, Greek.
_brede_, embroidery. Cf. _Lamia_, i. 159. Here used of carving.
l. 44. _tease us out of thought._ Make us think till thought is lost in mystery.
INTRODUCTION TO THE ODE TO PSYCHE.
In one of his long journal-letters to his brother George, Keats writes, at the beginning of May, 1819: 'The following poem--the last I have written--is the first and the only one with which I have taken even moderate pains. I have for the most part dashed off my lines in a hurry.
This I have done leisurely--I think it reads the more richly for it, and will I hope encourage me to write other things in even a more peaceable and healthy spirit. You must recollect that Psyche was not embodied as a G.o.ddess before the time of Apuleius the Platonist, who lived after the Augustan age, and consequently the G.o.ddess was never wors.h.i.+pped or sacrificed to with any of the ancient fervour, and perhaps never thought of in the old religion--I am more orthodox than to let a heathen G.o.ddess be so neglected.' _The Ode to Psyche_ follows.
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