One of the many appealing aspects of Ode to autumn is the use of sensuous details. Keats engages all our senses with beautiful, soothing and even intoxicating images. However, amid this tribute to life there are imitations of death. Discuss.
Keats’ Ode To Autumn includes many details that engage and enlighten us. During the Poem Keats creates images of beauty and life but as the poem begins to end he creates a sense of death and sadness.
Stanza 1 begins by explaining how much the poem expresses happy life. Some of the words and phrases Keats uses are ‘season of must and mellow fruitfulness’ and ‘friend of the maturing sun’. These phrases stimulate the readers’ senses and make the reader want more. Keats also creates an image in the readers head by using phrases such as ‘With fruit the vines that round the thatch eves run’ and ‘The moss’d cottage trees. These pictures that Keats creates in the readers head gives the reader a rich and vivid description of beauty and nature.
Keats also creates a sense of touch towards the reader by using ‘Warm days that will never cease’. This makes the reader feel the warmth of the sun on their skin and the breeze from the ‘winnowing wind’ used in Stanza 2.
Keats begins stanza 2 by creating a sense of visual imagery within the reader. He does this using the phrases ‘Thee sitting careless on a granary floor’ and ‘Hair soft lifted’. Keats uses the phrase ‘granary floor’ during stanza 2 because during autumn it is harvesting season. This gives the reader the sense that they are in the poem experiencing Autumn.
Keats uses stanza 3 for the sense of Aural Imagery towards the