Timelessness and Eternity: Finding “Beauty is Truth” within Keats‟s Ode on a Grecian Urn

John Keats lived from 1795 until his death in 1821. Keats was a great poet of the Romantic era, and wrote many

works which developed the ideas against scientific rationale and aristocracy, ideas which were common among

Romantic poets of the time. One of the works, Keats‟s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” directly relates a message of beauty

and truth, even to this day. John Ellis in his essay “The Relevant Context of a Literary Text,” explains that the only

way to interpret the literary value of a text, or to proclaim a text as “literary,” is to establish that the work has outgrown

its original context (pgs. 92-7). It is certain that Keats‟s Ode on a Grecian Urn has outgrown its original context, due to

the large audience that still reads the poem. The meaning of the poem, however, is debated. Allen Austin in his essay

“Toward Resolving Keats‟s Grecian Urn Ode,” declares that the controversial last two lines of the poem only had six

meanings, the most likely being that Keats‟s meant that “imaginative perception of beauty is a reflection of eternity and

that earthly happiness is repeated in eternity in a „finer tone‟” (pg. 49). However, to the reader the point is not that

“beauty is truth, truth beauty” has a meaning, but rather where the meaning exists for the reader as a truth and meaning

in itself. In other words, the meaning for the reader is where a person finds the beauty and truth that Keats‟s refers to, in

his poem. Austin believes that Keats‟s work tries to show that beauty is a reflection of eternity, based on letters Keats

wrote to friends and family. However, to get a full understanding of where the reader is to find the beauty and truth that

Keats referred to, one must combine Austin‟s viewpoint with the viewpoint of Ellis. Only between the combinations of

the two arguments can you connect the audience‟s interpretation to Keats‟s meaning of the text and make a direct

correlation to develop the closest meaning. When the two arguments are combined, one notices that in order for Keats‟s

ode to still mean something to the reader and retain Keats‟s original intentions, and in order for it to retain a literary

value, Keats has to have written something the reader sees as timeless. Only through common, timeless symbols could

Keats‟s work still mean something to the reader of today without destroying his original intention. Keats accomplishes

his intention of showing beauty and truth, and the reader finds the meaning of beauty and truth in eternity, when Keats

reflects eternity on the urn, uses symbolic imagery, and alludes to common symbols and places.

Keats reflects eternity on the urn by using commonly held symbols for eternity. One of these symbols is the

figures of deities. On line 5, Keats refers to a “leaf-fringed legend” which “haunts” about the urn‟s shape. “Leaf

fringed legend” is natural imagery, or imagery focused on nature, which is common for a Romantic writer to use in a

poem. When the imagery focuses on nature, such as a “Leaf fringed legend” it becomes timeless, because as a fact
nature always exists. The reader can see the deities and legends clearly because Keats has established a base point for

which anyone who is reading the poem can relate to; everyone has seen a leaf and can get a good idea of a “leaf-fringed

legend.” Furthermore, in this case the author‟s yearning for the “beauty” of the leaf-fringed legend, is conveyed to the

reader by Keats‟s use of the word “haunts.” “Haunts” denotes to loiter or frequent a place, but it also means to disturb

or distress, to trouble. In this case the “leaf-fringed legend” not only loiters around the urn‟s shape, but also worries and

troubles the author. Keats carries this worry of the urn‟s timelessness throughout the poem, until the urn speaks to him

at the end of the poem, almost reconciling the reader‟s fear of only being able to find this beauty in eternity and

timelessness.

Keats uses multiple instances of symbolic imagery to develop his theory that “beauty is truth, truth beauty” and

that it can only be found in eternity. The imagery is timeless, and helps the reader to find the beauty and interpret the

beauty in a way that future generations can still find and use. One piece of imagery is that of the pipe player in the

second stanza and the middle of the third stanza. Keats proclaims that “heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are

sweeter” and seems to suggest that what the reader cannot hear, the pipe‟s eternal song, is sweeter than what you can

hear from day to day (lns. 11-12). This imagery suggests two things. First, it suggests an image that any reader will be

able to relate to because music has existed and has continued to exist, so anyone can relate to this image on the urn.

Secondly, it suggests that only eternity holds the music that the piper is playing. Since music is considered a form of

art, expression, and beauty, one can assume Keats‟s meaning that beauty exists in eternity is mirrored in the image of

the piper playing a song that cannot be heard. This meaning is then translated in a timeless image so that the reader can

understand and interpret Keats‟s point correctly.

There are more symbols and places that could be alluded to in the poem, including the citadel on line 36, and

the lovers in the second and third stanzas. However, it only takes one or two symbols to show how Keats‟s text

develops a timeless meaning of “beauty is truth, truth beauty” in a way that expresses the author‟s original intentions.

The whole poem intends to commutate the meaning of beauty and truth in a way that makes the reader question where

to find the beauty and truth. In the final stanza of the poem, Keats‟s writes “Thou, silent form! Dost tease us out of

thought As does eternity: Cold Pastoral!” which summarizes his viewpoints on the urn and on eternity, that it simply

“teases” the reader out of the present and that it is up to the reader to find beauty and truth as the urn does not speak.