Stylistic Analyses of John Keats’s “To Autumn”

Introduction

 

Any piece of literature has its concrete structure. A structure and an arrangement of several parts of a composition according to the poetic goal defined by a writer is one of the most important issues for him.

But there are cases when an author follows not only the fixed syntactical laws; he may use such language means which do not coincide with the grammatical rules. In order to show a special state, mood or a shade of feelings, as well as to personalize the speech of present personages an author uses some additional means of sentence structuring which are called stylistic devices.

Stylistic devices can be used both in poetry and in prose. But their use is more obvious in poetry, because there are more emotional features in poetry. The nature of poetry is more emotive and in its turn underlines emotive nuances of a speech.

Stylistic devices are especially expressed in poems by John Keats, one of the most famous representatives of the English Romanticism. Their examination shows that using various types of stylistic devices the author achieved the needed mood, emotional impact as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Stylistic Analyses of John Keats’s “To Autumn”

 

 

Stylistics is a branch of general linguistics. Stylistic analysis is a normal part of literary studies. It is practised as a part of understanding the possible meanings in a text.

Reading any piece of literature the reader comes across a great number of various stylistic devices and expressive means which are the indispensable part of stylistics. It is generally accepted that there are three types of expressive means and stylistic devices in the English language. They are as follows: phonetic, lexical and syntactical. Among them are onomatopoeia, alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, imagery, metaphor, metonymy, irony, epithet, oxymoron, antonomasia, simile, periphrasis, cliché, proverbs, quotation, allusion, stylistic inversion, detached constructions, parallel construction, suspense, antithesis, enumeration, asyndeton, polysyndeton, gap - sentence – link, ellipsis, represented speech, litotes.

Onomatopoeia is a combination of speech sounds which aims at imitating sounds produced in nature (wind, sea, thunder, etc.) by things (machines or tools, etc.) by people (singing, laughter) and animals. Imagery is the use of vivid description, usually rich in sensory words, to create pictures, or images, in the reader's mind. A metaphor is a relation between the dictionary and contextual logical meanings based on the affinity or similarity of certain properties or features of the two corresponding concepts. Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. The epithet is based on the interplay of emotive and logical meaning in an attributive word, phrase or even sentence, used to characterize an object and pointing out to the reader some of the properties or features of the object with the aim of giving an individual perception and evaluation of these features or properties.  A simile is a figure of speech comparing two unlike things, often introduced with the words "like" or "as".

John Keats, today renowned as a leading poet of the Romantic movement, was viciously snubbed by many contemporary critics and by other poets.

 

John Keats lived only twenty-five years and four months (1795-1821), yet his poetic achievement is extraordinary. His writing career lasted a little more than five years (1814-1820), and three of his great odes--"Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and "Ode on Melancholy"--were written in one month.

Keats’s poetry describes the beauty of the natural world and art as the vehicle for his poetic imagination. John Keats used a great variety of stylistic device in his poems which made them more melodious, vivid and emotional. They help the reader better understand and perceive the poet's idea and purport, as well as make a clear and bright picture of all the feelings and pleasure the poet intended to pass the reader.

John Keats is known for his vibrant use of imagery in his poetry.

“To Autumn” is perhaps Keats's most famous and beloved work.  It is considered the perfect embodiment of poetic form, intent, and effect.  It was written in Winchester on 19 September 1819 and first published in 1820.

Of course, no one could talk about "To Autumn" without mentioning the rich imagery here!  All five senses are evoked! 

Stanza one abounds with visual images all of which suggest linked ideas of fullness and ripeness.

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.

To enumerate, the opening line concludes with "fruitfulness," which evokes images both of trees and other vegetation loaded and heavy with particular variety of produce. Readers also sense the juicy ripeness that fills and swells to bursting each different item of fruition. Vines are loaded and blessed with fruit; apple tree branches bend under the weight of fruit ready to be picked; gourds swell, hazel nuts are "plump" with developed kernels; beehives "o'erbrim" with the nectar of a riot of blossoms.

With stanza two earlier hints of personification are developed. He is addressed with the pronoun "thee," which is reserved for human beings or their anthropomorphisms.

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.

Personification is seen to be a combination of visual and tactile imagery and a variety of epithets such as patient look and the last oozings,. onomatopoeia- Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind, metaphor-the fume of poppies.

The imagery of stanza three is predominantly auditory but still visual, and again there is rich variety of epithets in it; soft-dying day, barred clouds, rosy hue, stubble-plains, metaphors - the songs of spring, wind lives or dies, hedge-crickets sing.

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.

 

Throughout the whole ode the reader comes across a huge variety of stylistic devices. But it is imagery that has the widest use in the poem, e.g. sound images- the buzzing bees and the winnowing wind, the music of Autumn, the choirs of gnats, the lambs loud bleat, the songs of Hedge-crickets, and the red-breast whistles. There are plenty of touch images as well such as the mists, the clammy cellsof the bees, Autumn's soft-lifted hair, the oozings of the ripe fruit.  Touch, of course, can bleed into taste imagery as the oozings of ripe fruit also appeals to taste as does the fruit with ripeness to the core, the sweet kernel, the cider press, and simply the plural noun apples.  In regards to smell (the least used method of imagery here), Keats adds later flowers for the bees and the fume of poppies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Summarizing the analysis of stylistic features in the ode “To Autumn” by John Keats it becomes clear that different types of stylistic devices are of primary importance. In his ode Keats uses mainly imageries, metaphors, epithets, similes and onomatopoeias. With the help of stylistic analysis it becomes obvious that Keats doesn’t use metonymies. It also becomes evident that among all stylistic devices it is imagery that Keats uses most often. The very use of this stylistic device makes his odes so vivid and alive. Imageries make the reader feel the nature and penetrate into its particles.

Keats also uses metaphors and epithets which are often expressed in imageries thus making double expression on the reader.

So, the literal style of the ode “To Autumn” by John Keats is extremely impressive, extraordinarily beautiful and eminent. And the secret of this is just a virtuous use of imageries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

1. Girard-Kansas, Haldeman-Julius - ˝Poems of John Keats˝. 1923.
2. Galperin Ir. – “Stylistics” 1977
3. www.todayinliterature.com.
4. perey-anthropology.blogspot.com.