Whenever I look up pieces of literature or poetry, I always have to look up the author first. I find it very interesting and feel like I get a better insight into the point that the author or poet was trying to make. When I researched Keats I found that he lived a very short, tragic life. He died as a twenty-five year old from tuberculosis (just like his brother and mother). There are many parts in this poem about where he speaks of “life” and “eternity”. I think this was his way of grasping life before he was dead. Both of Keat’s parents died before he was ten and he was the guardian of his brother while he was dying. That gave him a better understand of what life is and just how short it is. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” has that same central idea that life is beautiful and we must live it to it’s fullest.
” ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’ “ Keats made it so the Grecian urn was to symbolize life itself. One of the websites that I was reading said that Keats was trying to express how beautiful the lives of the people carved into the urns were. He mentions “Tempe” and “Arcady” in the first stanza, which are two Grecian towns, known for their beauty.
Just one other tidbit that I thought was interesting was that the poem has mentioned the cold a few times and grecian urns were usually made of marble. The first thing I think of about marble is that it’s cold. I wonder if Keats made that connection too?
