|
HOME »
WORKSHOPS » POETRY » JOHN KEATS, "TO AUTUMN" » RE-READING
John Keats, "To Autumn"
BIOGRAPHY
Reading » Re-Reading » Explorations
Re-Reading Questions
Text on p. 1100 of the full Ninth Edition
Pay particular attention to italicized phrases:
|
5
10
15
20
25
30
|
 |
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinéd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barréd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
|
Re-Reading Questions
1. Re-read the poem, paying particular attention to the italicized words. Pick out a few that seem to be particularly significant. Which are emphasized by the poem's meter?
2. Be certain that you know what each natural object and action in the poem is. For example, "clammy cells" refers to the honeycombs of the bee; "store," a place where commodities or foods are kept, also means "abundance"; a "granary" is a place to store threshed (winnowed) grain; "poppies" are the source of opium; and the "cider press" turns apples into cider (and wine). In the last stanza, "full-grown lambs" are sheep and gnats live long enough only to mate and die. A "croft" is an enclosure and the swallows may be gathering for their migration south.
3. Read the poem aloud and mark the meter so that you can locate the variations in its iambic pentameter. Listen for ways that the sounds and rhythm of the words reinforce their meaning, especially in the final stanza. Explore the imagery of all five senses, especially as embodied in the verbs.
4. Answer the question "Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?" The answers of Keats's urban readers were probably not so different from your own. Why do you think he asks the question?
5. What is the place of humans in this beautifully described natural world? How does the poem counter the common perception of fall as leading to the impending "death" that is winter? Why does he refer to Spring in the final stanza? Compare the images of the final stanza with the earlier ones. What do the changing images say about realism and romantic fantasy in the poem? This is one of Keats's final poems, written after a walk he took two years after he was aware that he would likely die of tuberculosis. What does this poem suggest about how he was facing his own death?
|
Icon Directory
 In The Portable Intro to Literature
 In The Seagull Reader
 In Portable & The Seagull Reader
|
