Ode on a Grecian Urn

OUR URN

STANZA 1

Why is the urn compared to a " still unravish'd bride"?

• "still" has two meanings - "motionless" or "remaining in time". Time and motion are two concepts that the poem explores throughout.
• "unravish'd" means unspoiled - a bride yet to lose her virginity; similarly, the urn and the scenes it represents are "unspoiled" by the passage of time.

Explain the term "sylvan historian"(l.3)

• The urn is a "Sylvan historian" because it records scenes from a culture lived long ago (ancient greeks); and because it is bordered with leaves, as well as having scenes of the countryside within.
• Is it paradoxical that the urn, a "bride of quietness", can tell its stories "more sweetly than our rhyme" (meaning the poem itself)?
• The gentleness of the term "sylvan historian" and his "flowery tale" told "sweetly" do not prepare us for the wild sexuality of lines 8-10. (Another contrast!)

What change in viewpoint occurs in lines 8-10?

• The short questions and frequent repetitions inject pace into the poem. Notice how the speaker moves from contemplative observer to emotionally-involved participant with these breathless questions. (We have another contrast - that of the participant vs the observer). You may want to think about how I develop this idea throughout, and what it might suggest about the audience's relationship with "Art" in general...

STANZA 2

a

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

The speaker contrasted the ideal vs the reality based on the “heard melodies.

• In this stanza, the speaker moved to another scene of the urn.
• In this stanza the music is being played on "pipes,", these pipes are "soft."
• The speaker gets to a conclusion: He says that the melodies you don’t hear are "sweeter" than those you do, that the piper’s “unheard” melodies are sweeter.
• PARADOX= it doesn’t make sense. (The music can’t be heard if it is at “volume cero”)
• He imagines the scenes on the urn as if they were real places and events. Real people are actually "living" on the urn, but they are frozen in time.
• The pipe-player actually is playing a song, but you can’t hear the song because urns don’t make sounds. The speaker is imagining what the song would song like, and he thinks this imaginary song inside his head is better than anything he has heard with his ears.
• In other words, he prefers to the ideal word to the real one
• He is the one imagining the pipes are playing
• He tells the pipes not to play to his “metaphorical ear” the imaginary ear, not the real ear, (the physical).
• Also the speaker asks the pipes to play melodies without sounds (Imaginary songs).

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

• It seems that a man is chasing a women
• "Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss", suggesting that given by the circumstance of being forever still as he is inside an urn, no real action will take place, this love will never be fulfilled, that’s why there is an emphasize on the word “never”.
•  "Though winning near the goal",  back to reality where he tells the Bold lover that the kiss will never REALLY happen
• There is a feeling of distress and anxiety because there appears the desire of leaving the world of reality and staying in the world of fantasy. 

TASK 1

a) 

I understood a very profound aspect of the poem: imagination is stronger than knowledge, more powerful than real life. In the case of this poem it can be seen a very important Paradox, as the speaker says that music can’t be heard, which doesn’t make sense, the speaker also asks the pipes to play melodies without sounds.  He says that the melodies you don’t hear are "sweeter", this is a perfect contrast of the imaginary world, portraying that it is better than “belonging” to the real world. IMAGINATION = a key aspect of Romanticism, the world around us depends on our imagination

b)

c)