TO AUTUMN

JOHN KEATS

CONTENT

The Romantic PeriodPoet Description of the PoemThemes Symbols Values Language UseMetaphors Implementations in the classConclusion

ROMANTICISM

(1850 - 1920 )

ROMANTICISM

an artistic, literary and intellectual movement

in the second half of the 18th century in Europe,

in reaction to the Industrial revolution.

a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment.

a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.

most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature,

HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS

age of revolutions the American (1776) and the French (1789) revolutions

age of upheavals in political, economic, and social traditions,

IMAGINATION imagination as our ultimate "shaping" or creative power,

the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity. dynamic, an active, rather than passive power, with many functions.

NATURE

a work of art, constructed by a divine imagination,

emblematic language ants ="heap'd stones,"

grass = a natural "hieroglyphic," "the handkerchief of the Lord."

SYMBOLISM

great prominence in the Romantic conception of art.

symbols were the human aesthetic correlatives of nature's emblematic language.

EMOTION,LYRIC,POETRYgreater emphasis on the importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings,

greater attention to the emotions as a necessary supplement to purely logical reason.

CONTRASTS WITH NEOCLASICISM

systematic contrast with the norms of "Versailles neoclassicism."

Neoclasicism=strict laws of balance and restraint, rigid, severe, and unemotional.

Romanticism=consciously asserted their differences from the previous age

declared their freedom from the mechanical "rules."

emotional, deeply-felt, individualistic.

INDIVIDUALISM:THE ROMANTIC HERO

importance of the individual, the unique, the eccentric.

they opposed the character typology of neoclassical drama.

created its own literary types.

THE ROMANTIC ARTIST IN SOCIETY

Romantics were ambivalent toward the "real" social world around them.

politically and socially involved,

distance themselves from the public.

JOHN KEATS

Born on 31 October 1795 in central London

One of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement

Keats's first surviving poem, An Imitation of Spenser,

The poetry of Keats is characterized by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes,

Developed an interest in classics and history which would stay with him throughout his short life.

He suffered from tuberclosis.

his mother died of tuberculosis leaving the children in the custody of their grandmother.

died on 23 February 1821

DESCRIPTION OF THE POEM

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

The first stanza

AUTUMN

autumn and the sun are old pals

the sun, who is"maturing" as the year goes on

"Mists" often accompany chilly weather because the moisture in the air condenses into a vapor when it's cold.

when many fruits and other crops are harvested, making autumn fruit-full.

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

Thatched cottages suggest a pastoral setting, characterized by shepherds, sheep, maidens, and agriculture

They are planning how to make fruit grow on the vines that curl around the roofs ("eves") of thatched cottages.

The image highlights the weight of the fruit as it "loads" down the vines.

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 

The ripeness penetrates deep to the very center of the fruit.

The apples "bend" down the branches of mossy trees with their weight

They're not like those apples that look delicious until you take a bite and realize that the fruit is hard and sour. No, these babies are ready for chow-time right now.

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

like squash, zucchini, and, especially, pumpkins

the ripeness converged on the center of the fruit. Now, the ripeness expands like a balloon to "fill up" nuts and gourds

It's almost as if the speaker is coordinating the growth of all these fruits and nuts. He's like, "more! More! MORE!"

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells

Autumn isn't a time of things dying off, turning brown, and falling to the ground. It is the return of growth in the spring. From nature's perspective, fruit is the mechanism for planting new seeds.

The bees are like monks or prisoners inside of "clammy cells," the cells being the moist insides of the flowers in which they seek nectar.

The bees think the summer will never end, and that the flowers will always be in bloom.

The second stanza

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Who hasn't seen autumn hanging out by his or her (we're not sure yet) "store" of fruits, nuts, and other ripe things?

personification of spring Where is the AUTUMN ?

suggests the abundance of crops, =>a barn or a grain silo filled with the most recent harvest.

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, he's going to tell us how to find autumn now

"abroad" means "widely" or "through the countryside" or "across the land," rather than "in a foreign country."

the autumn may be every "granary" – buildings where large amounts of harvested grain are kept cool and dry – until you find autumn sitting on the floor of one of them

Now that the grain has been harvested, autumn doesn't have a care in the world

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; autumn is a woman

She sits on the granary, and her hair is lifted by a gentle wind

Tells us where the autumn is

"to winnow" in farm-speak means to separate the grain (the edible part of the plant) from the chaff (its inedible covering)

The place where the grain and the chaff are separated is "threshing floor" – this is where autumn is hanging out.

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

What if she's noton the threshing floor? Where do we find autumn?

she might also be on the furrow of a field She's taking a nap because, she's earned one

that autumn is basically drunk on the smell of the poppy flowers

She lies on the furrow while the "hook," or sickle, that she uses to cut the flowers lies unused

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

autumn => a "gleaner," someone who picks out the last stalks of grain that were missed during the threshing process

Autumn puts her head down to cross over a brook, just as a gleaner bows his or her head to look for grains. Her head is "laden" or heavy

METAPHOR

PEASANTS

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Autumn is starting to sound like a real slacker

watching the fruit get squeezed into a thick, sugary juice.

She has nothing to do, nowhere to be

"Oozings" is definitely our favorite word in this poem. It captures the concentrated sweetness of the season.

The third stanza

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,

"Where are your songs at, Spring? Huh? Bring it, if you got it. I can't hear you... Yeah, that's what I thought."

The final stanza begins withanother rhetorical question

Spring might be great and all, but it doesn't stick around, so who needs it.

pastoral tradition in poetry, in which shepherds typically "sing" in springtime, often while playing a lyre.

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Description of the "song" of autumn=> metaphorical song, in that the scene begins with light and images.

The use of "bloom" is a direct challenge, again, to springtime

The day is "dying" at sunset, but it's not a tragic or violent death. It's "soft" and gentle.

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; The gnats by the riverside "mourn" the dying day like a choir at a funeral

Their movement appears to be coordinated with the light. Light gets brighter, gnats go up; light gets dimmer, gnats go down

sunset as a life-or-death struggle for the light.

The sound of the gnats contributes to the song of autumn

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

more animal sounds,

but those of a more conventional variety than the buzzing of gnats.

like saying, "full-grown child." He seems to want to highlight the in-between stage between the glorious ripeness of youth and plain old adulthood.

Crickets are "singing" known as "chirping."

the redbreast robin is whistling in an enclosed garden, or "garden-croft."

they "twitter" joyfully as the sun goes down.

THEMES

Theme of Man and the Natural World

The production of agriculture, a natural process that is controlled by people.

Interaction between human and plants

The human perspective to include things that are not used or consumed by humans

Some of the "wildness" and unpredictability of nature.

Man and natural world

reflection of the nature in his literary works

he is aware of this beauty

Theme of TimeAutumn and spring, but not winter.

At the peak of sunlight and ripeness in the first stanza, and by the third stanza the sun is setting.

To forget about how each passing day seems a little shorter and chillier.

Time the growth the fruits by the influence of sunlight carries us into the spring and summer as if TIME were expanding.Winter represents the end of lifeKeats enjoys and accepts autumn or maturity as part of life though winter is coming.

Theme of TransformationTransformation between the growth of summer and the dormancy of winter

Once the harvest is complete, there is nothing left to do but wait until the next season.

Fruits and gourds are swelling outward

The harvest is already complete

Only on one transformative event, the setting of the sun.

Theme of Mortality

As a symbol in literature for old age, the time before death, symbolized by winter.

Contributes to the song of mourning.

SYMBOLS

The figure of autumn

•Keats never uses "she" or "her" in this poem,

•We think that autumn is a woman, because when we look at line 15;

“Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind”

The word "winnowing" shows us because "to winnow" in farm-speak means to separate the grain from the chaff.

NATURE

“The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”

Pastoral

Keats not only uses nature as aspringboard from which to ponder, but he also discovers in nature symbols and metaphors for the spiritual and emotional states he seeks to describe

Like the ode, pastoral artworks are a staple of Ancient Greece, so it's natural that Keats paired the two together.-we can see pastoralism in lines 32-33;

The season of fall, like spring, has songs to sing.

Fall, the season of changing leaves and decay, is as worthy of poetry as spring, the season of flowers and rejuvenation. When we look at line 23-24;

“Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too”

Keats alludes to the pastoral tradition in poetry, in which shepherds typically "sing" in springtime, often while playing a lyre. Even if summer has a song, so has autumn.

MUSİC AND MUSİCİANS

• The contrasts autumn with its competitors, spring and summer.

• Summer is great, but it has to end sometime, a fact that the bees don't seem to realize.

• When we look at lines 9-11; “And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.”

• Bees can't hide inside those flowers forever. "Clammy cells" implies a that compares

the insides of the flowers to the small, damp cells of monks or even prisoners. The warmth of summer reaches all the way inside the flowers

SPRİNG AND SUMMER

Weight and Ripeness

•Autumn is season of harvest and abundance.

• He contrasts images of lightness and heaviness, of things falling and things flying.

• When we look at line 7 and 29;

“To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells”

The gourd is "swollen" with ripeness and the hazel nuts are "plump" with meat.

“ Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; ”

The line contains a vivid image in which the gnats rise and fall in concert with the strength of the wind.

VALUES

NATURE

Feminization of Autumn as celebration of Nature despite threat of Winter

The transience of life

Abundant in beauty and richness.

IMAGINATION

personified as young, careless, sensuous tired from her labour and lastly a patient watcher the tensions by transforming Autumn into a mediator easing transition between life and death.

SYMBOLISM

Idea of accepting life's changes by using clear, direct symbolism

using the progression of time and the many seasonal changes that occur during autumn

early autumn when Keats writes ."..all fruit with ripeness to the core"

LANGUAGE USE

To Autumn;

Is a thirty-three -line poem

Consists of three parts

Divided into three stanzas

Each stanza contains eleven lines with the ryme schema

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 moss’d 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-brimm’d their clammy cells.

A

B

A

B

C

D

E

D

C

C

E

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-reap’d furrow sound asleep,

Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

A

B

A

B

C

D

E

C

D

D

E

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred 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

A

B

A

B

C

D

E

C

D

D

E

METAPHORS

Line 15

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Autumn is a woman.

Autumn's hair is like the light chaff

Line 24

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too

for the harmonies of the scenery.she has her own music

Line 25 and 27

“While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn”

the "dying" of daylightchorus that "wails" in mourning at the funeral.

Line 11

“For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.”

compares the insides of the flowers to the small, damp cells of monks or even prisoners.The warmth of summer

IMPLEMENTATIONS IN THE CLASS

GUESSING AT MISSING INFORMATION

JOHN KEATS

John Keats was born on 31 October 1795 in central London although there is no clear evidence of the exact location. He was one of the key figures in the _______ generation of the ________ movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only _____ years before his death. Keats's first surviving poem, An Imitation of Spenser, had been written in 1814, when Keats was 19. The poetry of Keats is characterized by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of _____. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and analyzed in English literature. Keats developed an interest in classics and history which would stay with him throughout his short life. He suffered from ___________. His _______ died of tuberculosis leaving the children in the custody of their grandmother. Keats died on 23 February 1821

STAR DIAGRAM

agric

ultu

re

fruits

metaphorsan

imal

splants

GranaryHookFurrow

GourdApple

Winnowing windMusic Lamb

Gnat

Poppy

GETTING IN THE MOOD

This is a guided fantasy.

The teacher has students listen to the poem

Then , ask them to write what they feel, see and so on after listening

At the end of this, students are put into small groups

Finally, each group member describes his or her feelings to others

WHICH IS BETTER?

AUTUMN OR SPRING?

CONCLUSION

Keats talks about the process of life

Autumn symbolises maturity in human and animal lives

The ‘full-grown lambs’, the sorrow of the gnats,

The wind that lives and dies, and the day that is dying and getting dark

A part of the year that represents aging and death

Death does not have a negative connotation

Keats enjoys and accepts ‘autumn’ or maturity as part of life, though winter is coming.

THANKS FOR YOUR LISTENING080102035 MUSTAFA GÜL080102038 SALİM DALMIŞ

080102043 GÜNGÖR CANKURT080102054 DİLEK ÇELİK