Ode to Autumn
- John Keats
1. What is an Ode?
Answer: An Ode is a lyric poem that is serious in subject and treatment an elevated in style. (The word is simply the Greek for ‘song’ and was applied by the Greeks to any kind of poetic composition that was written to be sung to music.)
2. How does Keats characterize Autumn?
Answer: Keats depicts Autumn as a benevolent spirit. According to him Autumn is a season of mists and fruits. It causes the fruits and flowers to grow plentifully. It makes all fruits ripe and juicy and causes flowers to blossom late in the season in order to supply the bees with honey, against the cold season.
3. “Close bosom friend of the maturing sun"
Who is the ‘bosom friend’? What do you mean by ‘maturing sun’? What does the friend want to do with the help of the sun?
Answer: Autumn is described as the ‘bosom friend’ of the sun.
The phrase, ‘to mature’ here means ‘to ripen’. The sun ripens fruits.
With the help of the sun, the friend (i.e. Autumn), wants to ripen all fruits and cause all flowers to bloom.
4. “Conspiring with him .....”
– Who conspires with whom? Is for any evil purpose? Bring out the implication of the world ‘conspiring’.
Answer: The Autumn season involves ‘conspiring’ with the sun, her close friend.
No, the season is not in league with the sun for any evil purpose. She is rather seen as a benevolent spirit, conferring well-being on the trees and plants. Here, ‘conspiring’ means ‘planning’ or ‘co-operating’ while taken literally; ‘conspiring’ means a breathing together (Latin Spiro means ‘breath'). The union between the two agents the sun and the earth will produce the rich bounty of harvest time.
5. “Until they think warm days will never cease.”
-Who are ‘they’? Why do they think so?
Answer: 'They’ here refers to the bees mentioned in the poem, Ode to Autumn by John Keats.
Though spring and summer are over, flowers continue blooming in huge numbers. This leads the bees to think that warm days will never arrive.
6. “Summer has o’er brimm’d their clammy cells.”
– Whose cells are meant here? What do you mean by ‘clammy’? What causes the over brimming?
Answer: The cells of the bees are meant here.
‘Clammy’ means sticky. The cells or small holes in a bee hive overflow with honey collected by the bees all through the summer and so became clammy.
During the summer season the bees have gathered honey from flowers and store them in the honey-comb. The cells are now filled to overflowing.
7. “Who hath not seen thee amid thy store?”
- Who is ‘thee’? What the ‘store’ referred to here? What is ‘thee' doing here? How does the poet answer the generation?
Answer: ‘Thee' refers to Autumn presented as a harvester.
The store here refers to the granary strewn with corns.
After the corn is stored in the granary the harvester sits carefree on the floor and watches the winnowing operation. The gentle wind lifts her hair tenderly.
8. “Sitting careless”
- Who is sitting careless and why?
Answer: Autumn, as described in Keats’s Ode to Autumn, is imagined in the shape of a harvester sitting careless. She is imagined so because she has finished her job of storing corns in the granary.
9. “Drowsed with the fume of puppies ..... swath and all its twined flowers;”
- What is referred to as twined flowers’? Explain the line.
Answer: Autumn is described under the image of a Reaper and now she has fallen asleep in the midst of the field of poppies being overcome by the sleep inducing smell of the puppies. And due to her drowsiness the ‘swath’ i.e. ‘the line of corn’ remains waiting to be cut along with its ‘twined flowers’ i.e. the bunch of puppies intertwined with the stalks of grain.
10. “Or on a half reaped furrow ....”
What do you mean by ‘furrow’? Who is found there? Why is the furrow half reaped?
Answer: ‘Furrow’ means cornfield or the trench cut by the plough.
Autumn in the character of reaper is found there. The reaper has fallen asleep in the midst of her work as she is overcome by the narcotic scent of puppies. So the furrow remains ‘half-reaped’.
11. “Or by cider-press”
- Who is seen as a ‘cider-press'? What is the person doing there? What is meant by the ‘cider-press'?
Answer: Autumn, personified as a ‘cider-press’, is seen as a ‘cider-press'.
The ‘cider-press' or wine-maker is sitting beside the machine. She is watching the juice of apples falling drops by drops.
‘Cider’ is a kind of wine. So ‘cider-press' is a kind of machine in which fruits like apples are pressed or crushed to extract juice.
12. “Think not of them”
- What are referred to by ‘them’? Who is addressed here? Why is the person asked not to think of them?
Answer: By ‘them’, the poet refers to the ‘song of Spring’.
Autumn is addressed here.
Autumn is asked not to think of Spring songs as she has her own music.
13. "Touch the stubble-plains” - Explain the line.
Answer: ‘Stubble' means the stumps of grains left sticking on the field after the corn has been harvested. The ‘clouds’ tinged the newly reaped corn-field with a rosy hue.
14. Name some of the singers of the Autumn.
Answer: Small gnats among the river-willows, full grown lambs, hedge-crickets, robin-redbreast and swallows are some singers of Autumn. They all together make a wilful choir singing mournfully in a chorus in the season of Autumn.
15. “Thou hast thy music too.”
-Who is referred to as ‘thou’? What is the music referred to here?
Answer: Autumn is pointed out as ‘thou'.
Autumn has her own peculiar music. First, there is the ‘morning’ buzz of the swarm of gnats among the river-willows. Next there is a chirping song of the hedge-cricket. Then grown full-grown lambs bleat from the hill and Robin Red Breasts whistle from the garden. Lastly, the Swallows twitter as they rally for their winter migration.
16. “White barred cloud – day.”
-Explain the line.
Answer: Keats presents the music of Autumn by a glorious sky scape. Fleece – like clouds often gather around the setting sun and impart a crimson glow to the day of which is quietly passing away.
17. “......and now with treble soft.”
- What is the meaning of the ‘treble soft’? Who is the singer here?
Answer: ‘Treble soft' means ‘high-pitched but not harsh'. The Robin Red Breast is the singer here.
18. “And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”
- What does the line imply?
Answer: The line from Keats's Ode to Autumn implies that the swallows that come together at close of the day are sitting ready to migrate before the rival of Winter.
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Read also: 🔎
👉 ‘Ode to Autumn’ by John Keats - Natural Aspects of Autumn
👉 ‘Gulliver's Travels’ by Jonathan Swift - S.A.Q
👉 ‘Ode to Evening’ by William Collins - S.A.Q
👉 ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas Gray - S.A.Q
👉 ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ - John Keats' Romanticism with real and ideal
👉 ‘Ode to Evening’ by William Collins - critical appreciation
👉 ‘Ode to the West Wind’ - (Canto 1) by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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