Introduction
The ode was written in the spring of 1819. Colvin points out that no single work of antiquity now extant can be regarded as the source of its inspiration. Lord Elgin pillaged a collection of ancient sculptured marbles from Athens in 1812, and deposited them in the British Museum. Byron expressed his sturdy protest against this plunder in his Childe Harold. Keats saw these pieces of sculpture, and one of them ,a Grecian urn,inspired this beautiful poem.
Theme
In the Ode on a Grecian Urn Keats attains to a higher degree of philosophic thought than in any other of his poems. It teaches the philosophy of Art and Ethics of human life. Unlike the 'ode to a Nightingale' , in which the pathetic side of human life is presented, it is not a sad poem. No inquietitude of spirit stirs its deep calm. The spirit of the untroubled Past , living in artistic expression unchanced, and Un changeable, possesses and soothes the poets mind.The hush of personal emotion leaves him free for objective thoughts , and hence he can soar higher and range wider than when chained to the joys and sorrows of the moment ,There is no doubt , an undertone of pathos when he speaks of the pain attendant on passion and pleasure ;but this subtly elevates the general thought which rises into the sphere of pure contemplation, of the beautiful, which he sees to be identical with the truth. Hence we find in this Ode the poetry of intellect as well as that of beauty .In discussion of the advantage possessed by the plastic art over human life in the element of permanence, he enters the realm of metaphysics.
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