Looking At Life And Death In Literature English Literature Essay
There are assorted life lessons taught to us through personal experience. To many people, the idea of deceasing leads to inquiries about how we live our life now. One can read about love, passion, and discord. However, a author ‘s construct about life can associate a valuable lesson to the reader. Keats, Ode on a Greek Urn conveys a melancholic significance about the beauty in immortality. Shelley ‘s, Ozymandias communicates a similar message about immorality and decease. Both verse forms were written to oppugn our being and significance in life. However, Keats writes more luminously and delivers the message that beauty is merely impermanent. Though, both verse forms have a similar context, the writers are disparate in their attack.
piper as a, “ happy melodist ” because his vocals will go on for infinity. The lovers crafted in endlessly vernal and happy in each other ‘s company. Though, the two lovers can ne’er show their love with a buss. In the existent universe, the lover ‘s felicity is imperfect. The deficiency of familiarity leads to ache, grieve, and a yearning that can non be to the full quenched. Hence, Keats comments about the lovers “ firing brow, and a parching lingua ” bespeaking an unrealized human desire.
Immortality is impossible for any human-being. Shelley ‘s, Ozymandias a traveller recalls seeing two huge legs of rock base without a organic structure, and near them a monolithic, crumpling rock caput lies “ half sunk ” in the sand. The traveller tells the talker about the scowl and “ leer of cold bid ” on the statue ‘s half-shattered face indicate that the sculpturer understood good the passions of the adult male idolized in the sculpture. Many centuries ago, the huge statue must hold been a symbol of wealth and power. The stature of the adult male lies in the written words on the statue, “ My name is Ozymandias, male monarch of male monarchs: expression on my plants, ye mighty, and desperation! ” Although the male monarch sneered with superciliousness for those weaker than him, he took attention of his people. Therefore, Shelley ‘s mention to “ The manus that mocked them and the bosom that fed ” indicates a cold but caring male monarch. At one clip, the statue must hold been a sight to tout for the disdainful male monarch. However, it is dry that the huge statue soon remains a “ colossal wreck. ”
Keats smartly illustrates the urn ‘s beauty and contrasts it with existent human emotion. The “ cold idyll ” of the urn exists everlastingly specifically because it has ne’er lived. This verse form is relatively easy to associate to because most people have desires to remain vernal and unrecorded forever. Much of the verse form seems to stem from Keats ain battles in life. By the clip Ode on a
Greek Urn was written Keats was passionately in love with a immature adult female, Fanny Brawne. Unfortunately, he was unable to move resolutely on his feelings toward her. Keats thought his lower societal position and his fiscal trials stood in the manner of their felicity. Consequently, Keats was like the cold marble of the urn which stood fixed and immoveable. At the clip this verse form was written he was besides tragically deceasing from TB ( Minahan 194 ) . One could merely inquire if Keats wished he could populate everlastingly when this verse form was written. The rough world of this verse form merely states that the beauty of this urn is unrealistic. The description of the images on the urn helps the reader imagine vivid illustrations. The reader is so left with the most of import last two lines of Keats poem which read, “ Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -that us all/ Ye know on Earth, and all ye need to cognize. ” These last two lines are the most powerful words in the full verse form. Keats says that when he dies and all those of his coevals, the urn will stay. The urn will state to the following coevals what it has said to Keats: A “ Beauty is truth, truth beauty. ” The ill-famed lines merely intend, make non seek to look beyond the beauty of the urn and its images. The images and ageless beauty are non life. The beauty itself is adequate for a individual to look upon.
In Shelley ‘s, Ozymandias the statue described is in ruins. The reader can conceive of how this colossal statue must hold looked centuries ago. Today that king ‘s illustriousness is nil more than a memory. Unlike Keats urn, the statue hardly survived over the centuries. One inquiries the significance of life after reading this verse form. The great Ozymandias full of pride, power, and riches merely has his weather-beaten statue staying in the center of a huge desolate desert. As Langer stated, “ Shelley captured this unbelievable amour propre in his verse form Ozymandias. ” The money and power 1 has is merely impermanent, until an inevitable decease. In our ain little manner we can mime Ozymandias. We collect keepsakes and construct commemorations all to accomplish a sense of immortality. In world, the beautiful ownerships a individual obtains in a life-time will non ever last.
These verse forms send powerful messages about the worlds of life. Shelley uses a crumpled up statue of a one time powerful king to convey a message that nil lasts everlastingly. Keats describes a brightly crafted urn and compares it to the world of life itself. In fact, Keats gets the message across more articulately than Shelley. “ Ode on a Greek Urn ” is a powerful verse form about the immortality and the beauty in life.
