To Autumn Analysis

Odes often address an inanimate object or abstract idea directly, but they do not always portray that object/idea as a person, as Keats does. We think that autumn is a woman, because the seasons we...

As a poet, Keats is probably most famous for his odes. An ode is a poem that addresses a person or object that can't talk back. The form originated in Ancient Greece, where poets like Pindar and Ho...

The speaker of the poem has a direct hotline to speak with the seasons. He also has an omniscient viewpoint on this woman named "autumn" who likes to relax in various autumn-y places. He manages to...

Can you guess which season this poem is set in? "To Autumn" gives us all the ripe, growing things we would expect from a poem with this title, and Keats even throws in an aimless, super-chilled-out...

"To Autumn" doesn't sound very much like normal speech. It has a formal quality appropriate to the ode form. It sounds like Poetry with a capital "P." Not to say that the elevated tone feels unnatu...

"To Autumn" seems to be missing a key word when compared to Keats's other Great Odes: the word "ode." You would expect the title to be, "Ode to Autumn," but maybe Keats felt confident that he had t...

A bouncer should have carded Keats every time he took a walk outdoors. "My name is John Keats, and I'm a nature-holic." No one else we know of becomes so intoxicated simply from the sights, sounds,...

"To Autumn" is probably the most straightforward of Keats's Great Odes. It does not contain any references to Greek mythology or complicated metaphors spanning five stanzas. The main challenge with...

We'd excuse you for finding this poem a little steamy, what with its tumescent gourds, oozing cider, and the bee pollinating a flower. Still, we'll chalk it up to your vivid imagination rather than...