Critical Appreciation

Ode to Autumn
This poem was written by John Keats in September, 1819. He was greatly struck by the beauty
of the season. The air was fine, and there was a temperate sharpness about it. The weather
seemed “chaste”. The stubble-field looked better than they did in spring. Keats was so
impressed by the beauty of the weather that he recorded his mood in the form of this ode.

The ode to Autumn ranks among the finest poem of Keats. The treatment of the subject is
perfectly objective or impersonal. It is shorter but technical more perfect. This is the most
faultless of Keats’s odes in point of construction. The first stanza gives us the bounty of autumn,
the second describes the occupations of the season, and the last dwells upon its sounds.
Indeed, the poem is a complete picture of autumn, the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.

In these opening lines of the poem, the poet beautifully some of the typical characteristics and
common scene of autumn season. The first sign of the advent of autumn is the appearance of
mist or fog at evening time in the marshy area along riverbank. Secondly, during this season
there is plenty of sunshine and warmth, due to which all fruits are filled with juice. The poet
presents this idea in poetic language by saying that autumn and sun are close friend. In other
word, he has personified autumn and sun by giving them the human quality of friendship. He
further says that autumn and sun conspire with each other to produce different result.

Autumn is directly addressed in the second stanza as “thee”. The writer considers autumn
during harvest time. Again personified, the writer thinks of autumn sitting on the granary floor
as the grain is being harvested. Then the writer autumn asleep, made drowsy by the perfume of
the poppies. Finally, the autumn is watching the apples in a “cyder-press. Since the first stanza
gives subtle indications of being early in the day, the second stanza would be midday or
afternoon as autumn has spent “hours by hour” watching the harvest, a sense of sometime
gone by.

In the final stanza the poet refers to the songs of spring which are not heard during autumn.
Spring is known for its wonderful natural music and Keats may be asked by someone to tell
whether autumn also has any music. In reply, the poet states autumn has plenty of music and if
someone hears that music, he will forget all the songs of spring. Later on in this stanza, the poet
gives examples of five different types of natural music produce in the autumn evening by
insects, birds and animals. The swallows gather for their migration. Their twittering is like a
church bell marking the close of the day. The stanzas are also arranged within structure of a
day: morning, midday and evening. And they are arranged in the structure of a life:
conception/birth, growth and death.

Keats said “O for a life sensuous rather than of thoughts”. Sensuousness in poetry means the
use of those images, which appeal our five senses. Keats is known as a sensuous poet because
his poetry is replete with sensuous imagery. Ode to Autumn is also in sensuous images. The
bounty of autumn has been described with all its sensuous appeal. The vines suggesting grapes,
the apples, the gourds, the hazels with their sweet kernel, the bee suggesting honey – all these
to our senses of taste and smell. The whole landscape is made to appear fresh and scented.
There is great concentration in each line of the first stanza. Each line is like the branch of a fruit-
tree laden with fruit to the breaking point. The first stanza is full of audio images.

Autumn symbolizes the maturity in human and animals lives. But the poet does not know that
he reaches in his poetic career. As his own life draw to a conclusion, his poetry has reached a
most eloquent finale. The poem marks the final moment of his career as a poet.

In the Ode to autumn, Keats wrote a poem which shows Greek way of writing more than any
other poem in the English Language. It is a classical in the true sense of the word. There is no
philosophy in the poem, no allegory, no inner meaning. We are just brought face to face with
“Nature in all her richness of tint and form. The poem breathes the spirit of Greek poetry. There
is a Greek touch in the personification of autumn and there is the Greek note in the poet’s
impersonal manner of dwelling upon Nature.

The third stanza is a collection of the varied sounds of autumn-the choir of gnats, the bleating
of lambs, the singing of crickets, the whistling of red breasts, and twittering of swallows. Keats’s
interest in small and homely creatures is fully evidence in these lines. The whole poem
demonstrates Keats’s interest in nature and his keen and minute observation of natural sights
and sounds. Keats’s responsiveness and sensitivity to natural phenomena is one of the striking
qualities of his poetry.

It is objective poem. Important figure Keats starts with claim but then he gives different
arguments to proof his claim. Autumn has its own beauty. Keats finds beauty in everything.
Keats says that autumn is not inferior than spring.

The poem is divided into three stanzas with 11 lines in each stanza. The meter of the poem is
iambic pentameter. The general rhyme of the first stanza is ab,ab cde dcce. The general rhyme
of the second and stanza is ab, ab cde cdde.

Keats is very fond of using of compound words. He uses many compound words in Ode to
Autumn such as bosom-friend, thatch-ever, o’er-brimm’d, soft-lifted, stubble-plains.
In this poem Keats has generally used simple and words. Most of the words use by him are
monosyllabic like mists, sun, with, fill, run, vine and bisyllabic like mellow, bosom, mature,
bless, apples kernel.

Keats has used longed sentences in this poem. The first full stop comes after 10 lines and the
second comes after 20 lines.

The above analysis of the theme and technique of the poem clearly reveal that it is one of the
greatest odes of John Keats. It is one of most technical perfect ode. The Ode to a Nightingale is
a less perfect though a greater poem. It contains all those poetic qualities for which he is known
in the entire world as a poet. This poem is totally objective poem. It is shorter but technical
most perfect.