Keats Ode on Melancholy
Keats’ Ode on MelancholyA Literary Analysis of “Ode on Melancholy”
“Ode on Melancholy” by John Keats deals with the subject of melancholy, defined as the feeling of sadness or deep depression and how to cope with this sadness. Being the shortest of Keat’s odes, it is written in a very regular form that outlines the shape or structure of the poem. The stanzas serve the purpose of offering advice to the sufferer by following the same rhyme scheme. Keats offers this advice by using extreme paradox in order to behold the attention of the reader and make clear the connection between pain and pleasure.
“Ode on Melancholy” is made up of three stanzas, which consist of ten lines each. It is metered in a relatively precise iambic pentameter. The first two stanzas offer advice to the sufferer in a specific rhyme scheme: ABABCDE. The third, final stanza explains this advice and varies the ending slightly with the rhyme scheme following ABABCDEDCE. It varies the scheme so that the rhymes of the eight and the ninth line are reversed.
“Ode on Melancholy” in comparison “To Autumn”, follows the pattern of a two-part rhyme scheme of each stanza. Each stanza consists of one group of AB rhymes and one group of CDE rhymes, which creates a sense of two-part thematic structure. The first four lines of each stanza define the stanza’s subject while the last six lines of every stanza help to develop the subject.
The first stanza of “Ode on Melancholy” advises the sufferer what not to do as opposed to later stanzas. The speaker suggests through empathy not to do things that will make the feeling of melancholy worse such as “go not to the Lethe” (1. 1). In Greek Mythology the Lethe symbolizes the river of forgetfulness. One can conclude that instant gratification of forgetting the suffering will not benefit in the end therefore the sufferer should not forget his or her sadness. It can also be inferred that the speaker is talking the sufferer out of committing suicide. For example “By nightshade, a ruby grape of Proserpine;” (1. 4). Proserpine is the mythological queen of the underworld and the grape of Proserpine symbolizes a poison. The speaker next suggests not becoming obsessed with negative images such as, death and misery. The beetle, the death-moth, and the downy owl represent negative images of death, misery, and darkness. The overall advice to the sufferer is to remain aware and alert to the depths of his suffering, but not to get lost within the anguish or pain.
In the second stanza, the speaker tells the sufferer what do to in place of things he forbade in the first stanza. The sufferer when presented with “the melancholy fit” (2....
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