Modes of Visuality in John Keats' 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'

Zusatztext

Essay from the year 2014 in the subject Didactics - English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,0, University of Frankfurt (Main), language: English, abstract: The relation between poetry and picture and their representation of the world have puzzled critics since ancient times. While paintings can only show a frozen and silent moment without words, language can only tell a continuous narrative without pictures. John Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn of 1819 takes up this issue: As a verbal description of a visual artwork, the poem explores the boundaries between the two art forms and their relation to the real world. This essay examines how the poem evokes different modes of visuality and thus proves that words can be strictly picture-like in their own way. Furthermore, the essay compares the reader's indirect perspective to the speaker's point of view as the firsthand observer of an imaginary object. The conclusion will show that even though the poem is as picture-like a poem can get, it eventually refers to its own writtenness.

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