John Keats\' to Autumn

John Keats and Melancholic Delight:

To Autumn

To Autumn by John Keats is a testimonial of the Romantic Era. The poem is filled with the importance of individual fulfillment at the behest of societal decline. The stoic nature of Keats's To Autumn is viewed by most as despairingly melancholic. However, when looking for hope one finds an eternal hopefulness amongst his opining. Autumn is used to symbolize the dichotomy in existence of life and death happening at once and forever. Keats sees in autumn the irony of life, and the contrast of humanity to the individual.

A general motif of the Romantic era became the inevitable decline of humanity. Philosophers and writers alike viewed industrialism as an evil driving innocence further from the reach of the collective. In short, the precipitous pace of history was leaving innocence in its wake. More over, tramping it along the way. "Society embodied forces opposed to individual development. Indeed, the word society had come to embody the impulses that desecrated nature and oppressed the poor in the interests of industry and progress" (Hugo-Spacks, 663).

The way to stem the tide of progress, in Keats' view, was to return to nature thus one's innocence. "Hope lay in the individual's separation form, not participation in, society. In the woods and mountains one might feel free" (Hugo-Spacks, 663)

Keats vision of man and nature, as seen in To Autumn, sought to combine the individual with the eternal. In other words see man in terms of nature. The opening line best illustrates this point, "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."

Opening this poem with a positive viewpoint upon the harvest time of one's soul forebears Keats intentions of combining Melancholy with stoic nostalgia, even delight. In other words, starting the poem as fulfilled provides comfort only wisdom of having bore the fruit of life can bring. Even though humanity may be reeling out of control, somehow, through nature, Keats is able to ripen fully and see beyond the trappings of society. The sixth line in the first stanza, "And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core," is a comfort to him, and to all seeking salvation. In this way the individual may evolve as society devolves.

By most accounts the second stanza is seen as despairing. Andrew Scheil writes, "like much of Keats's poetry, this image of despair embodies energy in repose" (18), when speaking of these last two lines of the second stanza. "Or by a cyder-press, with patient look / Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours." Scheil sees the oozing of the cyder-press as the last drippings of life. He also sees the press as society, and the juice as life's blood slowly being wrung out in an inevitably torturous way.

Other than simply seeing Keats view of existence as wringing of life's blood, another angle taken by critiques is acceptance or a simple description of the conclusion of life. "Its (To Autumn) meaning seems to derive from and be defined by the preceding odes to which, understood as a sequence, it is quite clearly the conclusion" (Brooks-Davis, 1). He goes on to say, "To Autumn, then signifies some kind of acceptance of death" (1).

To ascribe Keats's vision in To Autumn as a simple descriptive conclusion is to overlook the profound gift he is offering. To Autumn is made of three stanzas of eleven lines. One might see the eleven lines as symbolizing November; a month where the last of the harvesting takes place before the onset of winter. "To Autumn stanza contains eleven lines, perhaps the structural recognition of the seasonal [O'brimming]" (Brooks-Davies, 1). In this stage of life, just before death, Keats comes to fruition. Here, Keats overcomes the impermanence of existence.

It is here Keats illuminates the inevitable contrast of life and death, of fleeting and perpetuating. The second stanza embodies a lifetime of contemplation. To him, temporary and permanence are one and the same. When we take the last four lines of the second stanza this culmination becomes apparent. "And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep / Steady thy laden head across a brook; / Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, / Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours." The juxtaposition of the laden head contemplating the permanence of the brook to the impermanence of patience and the cyder-press, exemplifies Keats individual fruition.

Feeling his life is coming to fruition Keats sees things in a state of melancholic delight. By actively combining the permanent innocence of nature with his own existence, he can then see the autumn of his life as the richest and fullest he has yet known. However, this delight is combined with melancholic notions of knowing it took a lifetime to fully ripen; now time is short to bask in his newly found appreciation. While he is surely nostalgic of the fruit life has provided, he also believes this individual progress is perpetual as long as individuals yearn for deeper understanding.

During the second stanza Keats expresses his deeper understanding of perpetual existence. He switches from the first to the second person. Almost unnoticeable until the second or third time through it is a profound intricacy. Keats passes the existential baton here. In other words, by his journey morphing into the next person's he enjoys a sort of immortality. This is where he wittingly combines fleeting with perpetuating. Things are at once lost and gained, and at once temporary and permanent. This is the true essence of autumn to Keats; thus the true essence of life.

The essence of the third stanza brings Keats to stoic resolution. He is able to enjoy the sunset of his life for the beauty it offers. Not what society should think or have him believe. In the first two lines of the last stanza, "Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? / Think not of them, thou hast thy music too," Keats sheds societal norms and implores the growth of the individual.

By not entertaining indulgences of finding something new and fresh as society does in the destructive path of progress, he seeks to encourage the evolution of the individual. For Keats this means embracing the beauty at hand, and of his moment. "While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, / And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue." The soft dying day represents the beauty of life that contemplation of fruition brings. To him, the juice of ripened understanding is worth the squeeze.