Immortal Eroticism in “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
Melina Stavropoulos
“If I am destined to be happy with you here—how short is the longest Life. I wish to believe in immortality—I wish to live with you for ever.”
—excerpt from John Keats’ letter to Fanny Brawne, 1820.
John Keats’ letter to his fiancée in 1820 reveals the writer’s intense longing for immortality. Amidst his profound awareness of his own mortality after his tuberculosis diagnosis, Keats considers the bounds of his desire. Though the letter above was not written to Keats’ modern readers, the publication of his personal letters introduces another dimension to Keats’ words, in which the reader is an additional, unconscious object of the writer’s desire. In a similar manner, Keats’ poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” challenges and explores the limits of eroticism, as the speaker desires both the urn itself and the erotic scenes presented on its surface. Keats blurs the boundaries of the real world and the fantastical while he confronts the conventional confines of eroticism. By presenting the urn and the speaker as both seducers and seduced, Keats establishes a space for a fluid eroticism that parallels his conception of a fragile reality. Thus, in recognition of his impending death, Keats uses the poem to construct a world in which eroticism and reality exist in an in-between state and prevail as immortal.
Much of the allure of “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is promoted by the urn’s function as a seductress. The speaker’s immediate reference to the urn as a “still unravish’d bride” introduces the particular attractiveness associated with chaste women at the time; the word “still” only heightens the urn’s feminine purity (Keats, 1). Throughout the poem, the speaker attempts to uncover the mystery presented by the urn, particularly in the “leaf fring’d legend that haunts about [the urn’s] shape” (5). Though the ode is directed towards a tangible object, Keats’ description of the “leaf fring’d” pattern on the urn’s “shape” evokes a mere outline, silhouette, or shadow rather than a description of bold physicality. Thus, the poem acts as an attempt to perceive the interior of the “silent form” of the urn which invites exploration from both the speaker and the reader (44). In recognition of the urn’s seductive qualities, the speaker exclaims that the urn “dost tease us out of thought / As doth eternity” (44-45, emphasis mine). By designating the urn as teasing, the speaker implies intentionality in the urn’s seduction. In addition, the pronoun “us” establishes a collective, plural entity that the urn entices (44). Thus, Keats characterizes the urn as a seductress who is aware of her capabilities and effects on both the speaker and the reader.
However, the qualities of seduction are not solely restricted to the urn, as Keats constructs a powerful layering of eroticism between the speaker and urn and the poem and reader, in addition to the urn’s teasing of the speaker and reader. The poem’s title, designating it an “Ode on” rather than an “Ode to” is an instant source of ambiguity, as it describes an ode on the surface of the urn despite the clear function of the poem as an ode “to” the urn. This ambiguity invites the reader, mirroring the teasing nature of the urn itself. In addition, the poem’s unconventional rhyme scheme serves to progress its seductive structure; while the first and last stanzas use a surprising ABABCDEDCE structure, the three stanzas between them use a patterned ABABCDECDE structure. Rather than using the first and last stanzas to provide a sense of closure, Keats presents the reader with a sense of disruption at the beginning and end of the poem, while satisfying the reader throughout to move the poem forward. The rhyme scheme is coupled with the speaker’s teasing of the urn; the anaphora that opens the poem of “Thou still unravish’d bride” and “Thou foster-child” establishes the poem as a dedication that is reminiscent of courting or serenading (1, 2). In addition, the speaker persistently asks questions about the events and characters upon the urn’s surface (5-10). Aside from the flirtatious quality of questioning, the speaker’s inquiries invite the perception of the urn as an object to be explored which inspires both the speaker and the reader. Thus, Keats presents a fluidity both in the directionality and function of eroticism in the poem, as the urn, the speaker, and the reader are subjected to the art of seduction.
The erotic scenes on the surface of the urn act as an additional link in the erotic chain, as the speaker directs his attention to individual characters on the urn’s surface in addition to the urn itself. Though the speaker courts the urn as an entity, he also speaks directly to the figures on the urn rather than just describing them: he comforts the “bold lover,” envies the “happy boughs” and the “happy melodist,” questions the “mysterious priest,” and even speaks to the “little town” (17, 21, 23, 32, 38). By subjecting the characters upon the urn’s surface to the speaker’s eroticism, Keats refrains from providing the reader with a clear conception of erotic directionality. Rather, the speaker’s desire exists in the real world as he courts the urn, and in the imaginary as he is drawn towards the individual characters that only come to life in his mind. Keats complicates the binaries of the real and imaginary, as the characters exist as pictures on the urn, while the urn exists as a full object in reality, yet is only an “Attic shape,” or an outline that surrounds both what is upon it and within it (41).
When observing the potential “pursuit” depicted on the urn, the speaker establishes the setting “in Tempe or the dales of Arcady” (7, 9). Tempe and Arcady, both valleys in ancient Greece, invite a vaginal imagery of the natural, rural world that the speaker idealizes. Amidst this setting, “men or gods” pursue “loth,” unwilling women (8). Thus, the men within the scene conquer both the feminine setting as well as the women that occupy it in a “wild ecstasy” of human passion (10). By seducing the feminized urn that reveals images of youthful male sexual prowess, the speaker presents an attraction to not only the urn itself, but particularly to the state of perpetual desire of the characters within it. The speaker continues to marvel at the urn’s “brede / Of marble men and maidens overwrought”—the word “brede” describes the urn’s pattern while signifying the word “breed” (4-42). Thus, the characters exist in an immortal sexual state, as they are both still and moving, and both real and imaginary. Despite his fantasies that bring movement to the scene, the speaker chooses to emphasize the stagnancy of the “marble,” statue-like, men and the “maidens overwrought, / With forest branches and the trodden weed” (42-43). Thus, the speaker admires the women in the scene who are overcome by the branches and weeds of the vaginal, natural landscape of Tempe and Arcady, as the women are overlaid by their female counterparts in the natural world.
Though the speaker presents a phallocentric fantasy in his fictionalization of the urn’s images, it is the urn that ultimately holds the most power. The speaker calls the urn a “Cold Pastoral” that puts an end to the heat of the “burning forehead” and “parching tongue” of both the characters in the scenes, the speaker (as he worships the urn), and the reader (as they read the poem) (45, 30). Thus, despite the masculine interpretation of the scenes upon it, the urn prevails in its role as a seductress. Therefore, Keats does not maintain a phallocentric power structure in his representation of the urn, as both the urn and speaker are equally capable and in control; their seductive qualities are of equal caliber.
In continuation of his construction of a suspended state, Keats’ use and reference to sound facilitates the existence of a layered eroticism and an ambiguous reality. As the speaker discusses the fantasy world of the urn, he imagines the “unheard” melodies produced by the urn that “pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone” (11, 14). In other words, the speaker alone can observe the music of the urn that exists in stagnancy; it can only be heard in the speaker’s mind. Therefore, sound in the poem possesses an imaginary quality that mirrors the speaker’s fantastical observations of the urn’s scenes. Despite his abstract presentation of sound in reference to the urn, Keats’ construction of meter and rhyme produces a traditional bodily experience of sound that is absent in the urn’s music. Keats breaks the iambic pentameter of the poem when he discusses the effects of the urn’s “piping songs,” as they create “More happy love! more happy, happy love!” (24, 25). The consecutive stresses of “More ha-”, followed by the repetition of trochaic word “happy,” disrupt the poem’s phonetic melody to describe the musical melody of the urn (25). In addition, the loud, repetitive trochees present a stark contrast to the silent, hardly discernible “piping” sounds produced by the characters on the urn (24). Thus, Keats’ layering of sound in the imagined music of the urn combined with the sound of his meter parallels his construction of a layered eroticism; the phonetic, the imaginary, and the erotic exist in an otherworldly plane that Keats presents as real.
Keats concludes the poem with an establishment of yet another form of fluid layering, as he designates immortality to the poem itself that parallels that of the urn. Regardless of whether Keats intended the quotation marks around the poem’s final lines, the speaker or urn’s lesson that “beauty is truth, truth beauty” equates the corporeal, feminine quality of physical shape with that of the masculine intellect that exists in the realm of the mind (49). Thus, the imaginary world is paired with the real while the beautiful urn is paired with the intellectual speaker. The seducers and the seduced are separate and the same, as is the real and the imaginary. In addition, the urn itself simultaneously possesses the qualities of truth and beauty in its role as both a “historian” and a “bride” (3, 2). Thus, Keats parallels his layering of eroticism in his final message that exists within the urn and between the urn and the speaker. In his compression of both sound and space as truth and beauty are combined, Keats represents both physically and phonetically the state of simultaneous existence that he describes on the surface of the urn, as the stagnant characters are brought to life. By explaining that the lesson of truth and beauty is all that we, as readers, “know on earth,” Keats references another world in which such binaries can exist without being in opposition (50, emphasis mine). Since the poem acts as a manifestation of this suspended state of the in-between, Keats discusses an imaginary world of limbo while presenting a version of it on the page. In the context of Keats’ urn-speaker, speaker-reader eroticism, the lesson also serves as a reference to the poem itself as the “truth.” Therefore, the poem becomes the urn, and remains as an immortal vessel that bridges the unknown of the dead with the present.
As an object that holds the ashes of the dead, the urn exists both in the physical world as a tangible entity while in close proximity to the world beyond, as it provides a space in which the spiritual entities of loved ones can be imagined and experienced. It is not peculiar that Keats was so fascinated with the immortal qualities of this ancient urn, as he was profoundly familiar with death both in the passing of his parents at a young age, and his tuberculosis diagnosis that alerted him to his own impending end (“John Keats,” 1082-1083). Thus, the poem serves as a space in which the young writer’s desire, when confronted with death, can exist in multiple planes. As the speaker marvels that the characters on the urn will be “For ever panting, and for ever young,” he longs for a state of living, breathing stagnancy that is only attainable in the urn and in the poem itself (27). The speaker even suggests that “All breathing human passion” exists “far above,” thus blending the world of the afterlife with that of bodily desire (28). The urn, both on the patterns on its surface and in the ashes it contains, becomes an object between both worlds internally and externally. The poem, in its layered states of eroticism and reality between the speaker, reader, and urn, becomes a space between the past and present, and the real and imaginary in which Keats and his desire become immortal. Thus, the speaker’s description of the urn also acts as a declaration towards the poem itself.
Keats’ use of layering creates a space in which his youthful state of unresolved desire is presented on the surface of the urn, and thus becomes immortal like the physical object. It is Keats’ perpetual layering of reader, speaker, urn, and characters that incites a sense of searching in the poem; its eroticism seems to have no subject, even though all the subjects are revealed and addressed. Thus, the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is directed towards and comes from within the urn itself. Other Romantic writers strove to capture the ways in which human passion manifests itself in art, nature, and sublimity by creating proximity to a state of “something else.” Keats, in his short life, is the most successful in this quest, as he invites the reader into the world of the in-between that he remains a part of. As he longs for in his letters, Keats, through his poetry, lives with us forever.
Works Cited
“John Keats.” The Age of Romanticism, edited by Joseph Black, Broadview Press, 2018, pp. 1082-1083.
Keats, John. “Letter XXXVI.” Letters of John Keats to Fanny Brawne: Written in the Years of MDCCCXIX and MDCCCXX: and Now given from the Original Manuscripts, by John Keats, Nabu, 2012, pp. 98–103.
Keats, John. “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” The Age of Romanticism, edited by Joseph Black, Broadview Press, 2018, pp. 1104-1105.