希腊古瓮颂 英文赏析

As a famous poem of John Keats’ main works, Ode on a Grecian Urn is a remarkable classic to people from generation to generation. One of the reasons why it is renowned is thanks to the excellent poet, John Keats, who is extremely gifted but died young. Besides Ode on a Grecian Urn, in his short but precious poetry life, there emerges several other popular works, to illustrate, To a Nightingale, To Psyche, The Eve of St. Agnes and so on. Full of various beauties, Ode on a Grecian Urn is very worthy appreciating on its theme, images and rhetorical forms.

Through depicting an exquisite Grecian Urn made a thousand years ago, the poet expresses his strong admiration to the artist’s innovative skill which shocks him greatly. “Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, thou foster-child of silence and slow time” refers to the urn, which as a work of art, has been wedded to the quietness and brought up by silence and slow time, and therefore, suffers no change. It also shows that the poet has absorbed himself into the timeless beautiful scenery on the antique Grecian urn. Actually, the theme is embodied in the contrast between the permanence of art and the transience of the human life. Art is immortal.

Next, a variety of images in the poem all become the aids to set off the theme. Keats arranges them flexibly and properly, which is quite impressive. Pipe in the second stanza, along with the youth, the trees attract the poet’s endless fantasy about a lovely spot. And in the third, green altar, mysterious priest and the heifer lowing at the skies altogether structure a lifelike picture. Then in the last stanza, having listing the marble men and maidens overwrought with forest branches and the trodden weed, he attributes his unforgettable sensation to all the readers. We can’t forget both the talent of the artistry of the poet and the artist to mould their images.

In addition, almost all of the vivid expressions in the poem are contributed by wonderful use of rhetorical forms. Personification, allusion, metaphor, metonymy and hyperbole can find their way into the poem. The whole work is written in a thrilling tone as first person with the help of personification. “Ye know on the earth, and all ye need to know” is full of philosophy and emotion. Allusion expressions include “Sylvan” “dales of Arcady”, even and his own quotation “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” The first two lines in the first stanza is a wonderful use of metaphor which compares the urn to bride, beautiful and silent. Hyperbole is also very obvious. “As doth eternity” and other description to the still imagery on it all highlight the poet’s adoration to the urn.

All in all, Ode on a Grecian Urn, written by the positive romanticist John Keats, is absolutely a representative in the second part of English Romanticism. Fruitful of its theme, imagery, and rhetorical forms, the poem successfully expresses the praise to the creativity of artists in that time, and the poet’s admiration. It’s the masterpiece of time and eternity.