Published Paper Details:

An Ode is a long lyric poem, serious in subject, elevated in style and elaborate in its stanzaic structure. Keats' great Odes have immortalized his name---Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to Melancholy and Ode to Autumn to name a few of them. These stand testimony to his marvellous poetic creativity. The Odes of Keats created a new class of lyrical poetry with imaginative richness and eloquence of feeling and passion, pulsating with beauty, truth and joy which life revealed to his poetical genius. 1820 forms the Annus Mirabilis of Keats' poetic creativity as all his odes were written around 1819, and published at this time. Robert Bridges in John Keats: A Critical Essay writes: "had Keats left us only his Odes, his rank among the poets would not be lower than it is, for they have stood apart in literature". He breathes "the spirit of Shakespeare", avers A.C. Bradley in 'Oxford Lectures on Poetry'. Ode to Autumn, the last ode written by him is a Horation ode ---- calm, meditative and philosophic. The characteristics of Keats' poetry are: Nature, Beauty, Hellenism, Romance and personal poetic mood. These are found in the odes in different measure. Ode to Autumn can be classed as an ode on Nature and presents the principle of beauty in Nature. Autumn is described as "chaste weather" in one of his letters to Reynolds. In this ode he paints the Bounty and Beauty of the Autumn season and describes it as "seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness". The features of the season are delineated with vivid pictorial quality and the poem is like a moving pageant or living tableaux, affecting our senses with various impressions. It is unique because usually poets glorify the Spring season; very often Autumn has been deplored as the dying season when the harvest has been reaped and the fields are bare, the trees begin to shed their leaves and flowers wither in anticipation of Winter snow, when Nature seems dead with the trees bare of leaf and creatures hibernating.