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    Ode To A Grecian Urn - Discussion - Questions - EC

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    Sudeshna bhar
    The document contains 25 discussion questions about John Keats's poem "Ode to a Grecian Urn". The questions are divided into sections based on the 5 stanzas of the poem and ask about themes, symbols, literary devices, and interpretations within each stanza. There are also 8 extra credit discussion questions that prompt longer responses analyzing different aspects of the poem such as its treatment of art and context, its alternative focus to Wordsworth's poetry, and interpretations of specific lines.

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    Ode To A Grecian Urn - Discussion - Questions - EC

    Uploaded by

    Sudeshna bhar
    447 views2 pages
    The document contains 25 discussion questions about John Keats's poem "Ode to a Grecian Urn". The questions are divided into sections based on the 5 stanzas of the poem and ask about themes, symbols, literary devices, and interpretations within each stanza. There are also 8 extra credit discussion questions that prompt longer responses analyzing different aspects of the poem such as its treatment of art and context, its alternative focus to Wordsworth's poetry, and interpretations of specific lines.

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    A discussion on Ode on Gracisn urn

    Original Title

    Ode to a Grecian Urn_Discussion_Questions_EC

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    The document contains 25 discussion questions about John Keats's poem "Ode to a Grecian Urn". The questions are divided into sections based on the 5 stanzas of the poem and ask about themes, symbols, literary devices, and interpretations within each stanza. There are also 8 extra credit discussion questions that prompt longer responses analyzing different aspects of the poem such as its treatment of art and context, its alternative focus to Wordsworth's poetry, and interpretations of specific lines.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    447 views2 pages

    Ode To A Grecian Urn - Discussion - Questions - EC

    Uploaded by

    Sudeshna bhar
    The document contains 25 discussion questions about John Keats's poem "Ode to a Grecian Urn". The questions are divided into sections based on the 5 stanzas of the poem and ask about themes, symbols, literary devices, and interpretations within each stanza. There are also 8 extra credit discussion questions that prompt longer responses analyzing different aspects of the poem such as its treatment of art and context, its alternative focus to Wordsworth's poetry, and interpretations of specific lines.

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     “Ode to a Grecian Urn” Discussion Questions 100 points

    Questions must be answered using complete sentences.

    Stanza 1
    1. In the first stanza, why is the urn a “sylvan historian”?
    2. What is the “flowery tale” the urn tells?
    3. Identify two abstract concepts in this stanza
    4. Which word embodies the concepts of time and motion?
    5. What is described as “unravished” in this stanza?
    6. Identify one allusion used in this stanza
    Stanza 2
    7. To what “unheard melodies” does the second stanza refer?
    8. What is the paradox or oxymoron in the first four lines?
    9. Write down six negative phrases in the last six line of this stanza.
    10. Write down an example of alliteration in this stanza
    11. Write down an example of consonance in this stanza
    12. Write down an example of assonance in this stanza
    Stanza 3
    13. The third stanza refers to warmth and passion of two kinds, or on two levels.
    What are they? What advantages do the lovers on the urn enjoy?
    14. What is the irony of the “superior passion” depicted in this stanza
    15. What idea is repeated in this stanza?
    Stanza 4
    16. What does the poet imagine in this stanza?
    17. Summarize the action in the first 4 lines
    18. Summarize the action in the rest of the stanza
    19. In lines 38‐40, why do you think the speaker says that the little town will be
    forever silent and desolate?
    20. Looking at the overall sound structure of the stanzas, which sound is repeated
    more than another? What is this an example of?
    Stanza 5
    21. What are the limitations of art as represented by the urn?
    22. What literary device is apparent in line 42?
    23. What is the effect the repetitive “m” sound in line 42
    24. In the last line of the fourth stanza, who or what is desolate?
    25. Write down an example of an allusion used in this stanza.
    Extra Credit Discussion Questions
    2‐50 points
    1 page, typed, double spaced, 12 point font = 50 points. Each sentence= 2 points

    1. Critics argue over the meaning of the poem's last two lines, with or without the
    parentheses. How do you interpret them? What does it mean to identify truth and
    beauty‐‐two realms that we generally insist upon keeping separate, just as we separate
    ethics or morality from aesthetics or beauty?

    2. In a sense, the speaker is playing "art critic" when he questions the urn about its
    meaning. Does the personified urn's response validate this questioning? What does the
    poem, and especially the final stanza as a whole, suggest about the status of attempts
    to address the meaning of a work of art?

    3. Contemporary critics usually insist on interpreting art in terms of its social and
    historical context, with the understanding that context is always at least partly
    constructed by the critic and not simply available as objective data. But how does
    Keats' speaker suggest we ought to consider a work of art, if indeed you take the poem
    as offering any insights about "context"?

    4. Keats respectfully opposes Wordsworth's poetry of the "egotistical sublime." How


    does the present poem offer an alternative focus for poetry?

    5. What makes the speaker question the urn in the first stanza? What state of mind
    does Keats' poem seem designed to bring about?

    6. Why are the figures on the urn called a "leaf‐fringed legend"? [Look up the Latin verb
    "lego" or the gerundive "legendum" in a lexicon.] What does such a word have to do
    with the relationship between speaker and urn?

    7. What paradox develops beginning with the second stanza and developing through
    the rest of the poem? What does art give us? What does it withhold?

    8. What subjects of address does the speaker draw from the urn? What do they have in
    common? What don't they have in common‐‐in other words, does the speaker have to
    address some subjects differently? Does the speaker put them into any working
    relationship? Explain.

    9. People have sometimes said that line 25 is not good poetry: "More happy love! more
    happy, happy, happy love!" But consider the placement of the line in the poem as a
    whole‐‐why might Keats have included such a line where he does, rendering it
    appropriate?

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