To Autumn (Keats Beauty

By the end of the poem, the speaker

poem) Character List recognizes autumn's particular beauty. Why
mourn the lush landscapes of spring and
the speaker summer when autumn, as he says, has its
A first-person speaker who contemplates the own music?
nature of autumn, and observes the various
ways in which the season can be recognized
Nature
Keats creates a parallel between the cycles
in the world around him.
of decay in the natural world with the
Autumn inevitability of death in mankind. Nature
Autumn, the harvest season, is the subject of functions as a backdrop for the poet's
the speaker's address. ruminations on time, death, and happiness.
Just as life reaches its sweetest point, it
begins its downhill spiral. But nature, like
To Autumn (Keats man, is infinitely renewed: seasons pass and
poem) Themes return, just as death is balanced by new life.

Death Innocence and Experience

Autumn, in spite of the season's festive Throughout the poem, the tension between
colors and beauty, ultimately signals a innocence—the superficial joys one
process of death and decay. Even as the experiences through autumn's bounty and
beauty—and experience—the knowledge
figures and images identified by the
that all of its fruits will soon be picked, that
speaker signify the season's languor and all of the colorful leaves will fall to the
livelihood, they also represent the peak of ground and decay—expresses both the
life—a point that signals imminent decline. speaker's skepticism towards the leisure and
The tree branches may be filled with ripe pleasure he witnesses around him, and his
fruit, but soon this fruit must be picked, then acceptance that these feelings of happiness
the leaves will change color and fall to the and melancholy can coexist. By the end, the
ground. Likewise, the youth who naps on a speaker's realization that he can see the
hay bale must eventually wake up. beauty for what is, regardless of its
Transitions transience, demonstrates wisdom, not
"To Autumn" is also about change, or the ignorance.
process by which one state of being enters or
becomes another. As the speaker observes
the season's culmination of life, he also
To Autumn (Keats
recognizes the first subtle traces of change poem) Symbols,
in the natural world as it prepares for winter.
The speaker, by contemplating the world Allegory and Motifs
around him, comes to accept the inevitably
of time's passing, and realizes that he should Time
savor the beauty the season can offer, Keats frequently alludes to the passing of
instead of wishing for, or looking back to, time through the characters and images that
warmer days.
appear in the poem. The abundant landscape "And sometimes like a gleaner thou
is juxtaposed by imagery that symbolizes dost keep/Thy steady laden head
exhaustion: vines and tree branches are
across a brook"
heavy with summer's harvest, but the
speaker forsees the cider press squeezing
'the last oozings' of the season's fruits. In the
The speaker compares autumn to a
final stanza, Keats uses language directly gleaner who carefully balances the
associated with death. leftovers from a harvest on his head
Nature while crossing a small stream of
Throughout the poem, Keats utilizes figures water.
from the natural world to ground the Alliteration and Assonance
tensions between life and death. Summer's "Season of mists and mellow
hard work is evident in the abundant
landscape, but the speaker foresees the
fruitfulness"
moment at which all of Nature's labor will
be used up and lost. While the buzzing bees
Repetition of 's,' 'm', and 'f'
and blooming flowers of the first stanza
symbolize the endurance of life, the 'barred "While barred clouds bloom the soft-
clouds' and "wailful choir" of gnats refer to dying day"
the beginning of the end.
Repetition of 'b,' 's', 'd'
Music
Keats uses the metaphor of music to Irony
distinguish between the character of the Genre
seasons. Autumn's music, he realizes, may
ode, Romantic poetry
not have the same tune as spring's, but it is
lovely nonetheless. Their songs are too Setting
different for a proper comparison. Instead, the English countryside
he recognizes that he must take each on their
own terms and accept this difference with Tone
grace, if not joy. understated, tranquil
Protagonist and
To Autumn (Keats Antagonist
poem) Literary Elements 'To Autumn' doesn't have a clear
protagonist or antagonist—it's more
Speaker or Narrator, and of a philosophical meditation on the
Point of View relationships between time, beauty,
a first-person speaker life, and death.
Form and Meter Major Conflict
ode, three stanzas of eleven lines The major conflict lies between the
speaker, time, and the natural world
Metaphors and Similes as he reconciles the beauty he
witnesses with the knowledge that it with the fume of poppies, while thy
must end. hook/ Spares the next swath and all its
Climax twined flowers...'
The climax of the poem occurs at the The speaker personifies autumn
beginning of stanza three, when the through as a person sitting on a
speaker wonders Where are the songs granary floor and as someone who
of spring?" and then realizes that there picks poppies in a field.
is no need and no use in asking such a
question. Hyperbole
"For summer has o'er-brimm'd their
Foreshadowing clammy cells."
At the end of the poem, the speaker
foreshadows autumn's transition into Keats exaggerates the amount of
winter through imagery that evokes honey in the bees' cells to express the
mourning, growing up, and moving excessive joys of autumn.
on. Onomatopoeia
Understatement "Then in a wailful choir the small
Keats' uses of understatement gnats mourn/ Among the river
permeates the poem. His use of soft, swallows..."
delicate language in the poem's first
lines establishes the poem's tone. In The speaker connects the buzz of
the last stanza, his use of imagery— gnats to a choir.
the sunset slowly coloring the
landscape with its rosy hue, the "And fill grown lambs bleat from
swallows twittering in the sky— holly bourn;/ Hedge-crickets sing; and
emphasize the subtle transitions of the now with treble soft/ The red-breast
seasons. Keats eases the reader in the whistles from a garden-croft;/ And
poem, gently building to the speaker's gathering swallows twitter in the
realization at the end. skies."
Allusions The poem ends with numerous
Metonymy and examples of onomatopoeia, from
"bleating" lambs to "twittering" birds.
Synecdoche
Personification To Autumn (Keats
"Sometimes whoever seeks abroad
may find/ Thee sitting careless on a poem) Summary and
granary floor,/ Thy hair soft-lifted by
the winnowing wind/Or on a half-
Analysis of lines 1-11
reap'd furrow sound asleep, / Drows'd Summary
The speaker begins his ode to autumn by
describing the bountiful natural scenes that To Autumn (Keats
characterizes the season. He sees autumn as
the "close-bosomed friend" of the sun, who
poem) Summary and
"conspired" with him to bring the natural Analysis of 12 - 22
riches of summer to their peak. He mentions
vines and tree branches weighed down with Summary
ripe, heavy fruit, as well as the fall gourds In the second stanza, the speaker wonders
and hazelnuts waiting to be picked. The where the true essence of autumn can be
season’s abundant beauty and sweetness seen in the midst of the season's early joys.
make it seem as though its happy days will First, he imagines two characters who
never end. embody autumn's qualities: a person sitting
in a granary, and another sleeping on "a
Analysis half-reap'd furrow." Then, he compares the
In the first stanza, the speaker sets the tone season to a gleaner who balances a basket of
of the poem with highly evocative, sensual leftover crops on his head while he carefully
language. The long, soft syllables of the first crosses a brook. Finally, he imagines
line, "Season of mists and mellow autumn patiently watching a cider press
fruitfulness," combined with the repetition squeezing "the last oozings" of the season's
of 's' sounds, ease the reader into the poem, fruit.
echoing the scenery's calm atmosphere. The Analysis
line is stretched longer as its speaker The speaker's varied personifications of
languors in the moment, attempting to make autumn continue the list of the previous
it last as long as possible. Turning his stanza. By describing autumn through the
attention to the sights he sees in the natural actions of specific characters, he
world, the speaker lists fall’s sweet rewards. demonstrates the season's complex
Ripe fruits and vegetables fill the contradictions: autumn is at once "careless"
surrounding landscape. Flowers continue to like the person who sits in the granary floor,
bloom, and bees keep buzzing between but "steady" like the gleaner who carries his
them. However, when the speaker says that harvest across the brook. The season is
summer has "over-brimmed" the bees' drowsy and drunk on "the fume of poppies,"
"clammy cells," he subtly suggests that all is but it is also patient and observant, watching
not as well as it seems. the cider press like a timer that counts down
In the stanza's last lines, the unaffected joy to zero, where, when the last fruit is
the speaker witnesses quickly turns into squeezed dry, winter will arrive.
ignorance. He watches summer's last labors
slip into autumn's sly happiness, where the Likewise, the imagery evokes a sense of
beautiful days must, at some point in the something half-finished, the longing to
near future, cease. This first section of the linger within the moments that must
poem describes a world that has reached its inevitably pass. The wind softly lifts the
peak, and foreshadows its inevitable, person's hair in the granary, as though
impending decline. For the speaker, a cruel suggesting he must soon get up and move
deception underlies the season's delight. In on, while the person who sleeps in the
the midst of autumn's "mellow fruitfulness" furrow decides to "spare" the next plot of
is the grave truth of death: the pleasure and poppies while he rests. Meanwhile, the
bounty must end. gleaner carries away the leftovers of the
harvest after he picks the fields clean, and Using the metaphor of music to distinguish
another of autumn's personifications between autumn and spring, the speaker
watches the cider press progress squeeze its reconciles the differences between the
final fruits, powerless to stop the passage of seasons by refusing to compare them. He
time. Here, the nature of the images the sees spring and autumn as two necessary,
speaker creates is less straightforward than unavoidable periods of time with their own
the buzzing bees and blooming flowers of virtues, shortcomings, and truths.
stanza one: the characters are aware that
autumn's gentle joys will soon disappear, While stanzas one and two relied upon
and there is no sense of urgency in their concrete imagery, Keats turns to another
actions. They are happy to slow down, to sense in stanza three: sound. Against the
enjoy the moment for what it is. backdrop of a rosy sunset, the singing
crickets, bleating lambs, and the "wailful
The juxtaposition of stanzas one and two— choir" of gnats not only signal the end of the
the first, where the world seems ignorant of day, but the inevitable transition of autumn
summer's final bounty, and the second, into winter. This transition thematically
where autumn's personifications subtly corresponds to death, an ongoing
express their bittersweet awareness of time's preoccupation throughout Keats' poetry.
passing—foreshadows the speaker's But, through the soft, delicate language
reconciliation of these oppositions in the Keats' uses in the final stanza, we the see
final stanza. that the death autumn promises is gentle: it's
painless, and things don't seem to die as
much as they dissolve or disappear, slowly
To Autumn (Keats poem) shifting from one state of being to another.
Summary and Analysis of The day slowly fades from "rosy hues" into
night's darkness, and at the end of the poem,
lines 22 - 33 the swallows gather, ready to fly together to
Summary some other, warmer place. In the final lines,
Stanza three begins with a question: "Where the soft sounds seem to echo and resound,
are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are reminding the reader that all is not lost.
they?" which the speaker immediately If we remember the poem's context in Keats'
dismisses. He realizes that it's no use to life, we know it's the last of the six famous
think of spring when autumn has its own odes he completed in 1819. A bittersweet
music, even if its tune differs entirely. Night combination of sorrow and joy permeated
begins to fall, and the speaker describes the these months. Keats had found love in
"barred clouds" in the sky and the "rosy Fanny Brawne, but the couple was unable to
hue" cast against the emptied plains. As the marry because of the poet's financial straits.
gnats "mourn" the day in a "wailful choir," His brother Tom died of tuberculosis in
lambs bleat in the hills, crickets sing, and December of 1818, after Keats nursed him
swallows gather in the sky, ready to fly to through most his illness. In early 1820,
warmer climes. Keats would cough blood for the time,
Analysis confirming he'd fallen ill will the same
In the final stanza, the speaker ends with a sickness that killed his mother and brother.
meditation on time's passing, building upon In this sense, 1819 was the Autumn of
the highly sensual imagery of stanza one and Keats' life—its long, sweet days quickly
autumn's personifications in stanza two. approached the end.
 15 Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing
wind;

The Full Text of “To Autumn”

1Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Autumn, the season associated with mists and a

2 Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; general sense of calm abundance, you are an

3Conspiring with him how to load and bless intimate friend of the sun, whose heat and light

4 With fruit the vines that round the thatch- helps all these fruits and vegetables grow. You

eves run; work closely with the sun to make lots of fruit

5To bend with apples the moss'd cottage- grow on the vines that wrap around the roof

trees, edges of the farmhouses. You work to make so

6 And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; much fruit grow that it weighs down the

7 To swell the gourd, and plump the branches of the mossy apple trees that grow

hazel shells outside the farmhouses. Together, you and the

8 With a sweet kernel; to set budding sun make every fruit completely ripe. You make

more, gourds swell and hazel shells grow fat with a

9And still more, later flowers for the bees, sweet nut inside. You make the flowers grow

10Until they think warm days will never new buds and keep growing more, and when

cease, these buds bloom, bees gather the flowers'

11 For summer has o'er-brimm'd their pollen. Those bees think your warmth will last

clammy cells. forever, because summer brought so many

12Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy flowers and so much pollen that the beehives

store? are now overflowing with honey.

Who hasn't noticed you, Autumn, in the places

13 Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may
where your bounty is kept? Any person who
find
finds themselves wandering about is likely to
14Thee sitting careless on a granary
find you sitting lazily on the floor of the building
floor,
where grain is stored, and notice your hair lifted
by a light wind that separates strands of hair in 29 Or sinking as the light wind lives
the same way a harvester might separate the or dies;
components of a grain of wheat.

16Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound

Anyone might also find you asleep in the fields,
asleep,
on an incompletely harvested crop row, fatigued
17 Drows'd with the fume of poppies,
because of the sleep-inducing aroma of the
while thy hook
poppies. In that case, your scythe, which you'd
18 Spares the next swath and all its
been using to cut the crops, would be cast to the
twined flowers:
side—it would just be lying there, and therefore
19And sometimes like a gleaner thou
the next section of the twisted flowers would be
dost keep
saved from being cut. Sometimes, Autumn,
20 Steady thy laden head across a
you're like the agricultural laborer who picks up
brook;
loose cuttings from the fields after the harvest—
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
like this laborer, who has to be observant, you
22 Thou watchest the last oozings
watch the stream with your full, heavy head of
hours by hours.
fruit and leaves. Other times you patiently watch
23Where are the songs of spring? Ay,
the machine that juices the apples for cider,
Where are they?
noting how the juice and pulp slowly ooze out of
24 Think not of them, thou hast thy
the machine over the course of many hours.
music too,—
25While barred clouds bloom the soft- Where is the music that characterizes spring (for

dying day, example, birdsong)? I repeat, Where is it? Don't

26 And touch the stubble-plains with think about the spring and its typical music—you

rosy hue; have your own music. The background for your

27Then in a wailful choir the small gnats music is a scene in which beautiful, shadowed

mourn clouds expand in the evening sky and filter the

28 Among the river sallows, borne aloft sunlight such that it casts pink upon the fields,

which have been harvested. Your music

includes gnats, which hum mournfully among

the willows that grow along the riverbanks, and

which rise and fall according to the strength of

the wind.

30And full-grown lambs loud bleat from

It includes mature, fully grown
hilly bourn; lambs that make their baah sound
31 Hedge-crickets sing; and now with from the fence of their hilly
enclosure. It includes crickets
treble soft
singing in the bushes and a red-
32 The red-breast whistles from a breasted bird that softly whistles
garden-croft; from a small garden.

33 And gathering swallows twitter in And lastly, it includes the growing

flock of swallows, which rise and
the skies.
sing together against the darkening
sky.