Tuesday, December 1, 2015

If the urn of Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" could "tease us out of thought" (line 44), in what state would we be?

In this excellent poem we are presented with the effects of
contemplating Grecian urns on the speaker. In the line you have identified, the speaker talks of
how contemplating this Grecian urn has a profound impact on
him:



Thou, silent form,
doth tease us out of thought


As doth eternity: Cold
Pastoral!



We can therefore see that
viewing the Grecian urn is like contemplating eternity, and this in turn can lead to peace or to
sadness as the speaker is then led on to consider the ephemeral nature of man's existence. Thus,
if we allow the urn to "tease us out of thought," we would be in a state of mind that is beyond
the material world of time and place, as we would be considering big, philosophical issues such
as the nature of truth, beauty and our own transient nature as fragile human beings. The mixed
message of this poem is that whilst beauty can be eternal, man definitely is not, and this can
either bring peace and acceptance or sadness.

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