"ODE ON A GRECIAN URN" by JOHN KEATS
Channel: English Literature
Date: 2020-10-09

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” is about the permanence of art, love and beauty. The urn is an ‘unravished bride’ refers to the purest form of art.  The beautiful scenes engraved on the urn reflect the fleeting nature of life and the eternal truth of life i.e. death. Keats beautifully depicts how generations after generations go with the gust of the wind but what remains permanent is love, beauty and art. So the art in the form of the engravings on the urn, the unheard melodies sung by the musicians, the mad pursuit of the lover after his  beautiful beloved and the beauty of the forests, the ocean and the coastal life is perennial.  Amidst all the turmoil in human life what remains permanent is the art and its beauty, hence the poet says, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, --that is all/ You know on earth, and all ye need to know."