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Question: In Stanza 3 of “Ode on a Grecian Urn”!?
Ah, happy , happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
Forever piping songs forever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,
Forever panting, and forever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue!.
Keats is describing a scene on the urn where a flutist is playing a pipe under some trees, while a young man teasingly pursues a young maiden:
There is a difference between the "happy love" captured for eternity on the urn and the real human passion, which "leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,/A burning forehead, and a parching tongue!." In your own words, what do you think causes the difference!?Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Intriguing question!. :) There is also a difference between the happy love captured on the urn, the "actual" happy love, and the happy love written about by Keats, which references both but is tailored differently!.
And there is a difference between my impressions and ideas and imagining (even fantasies) of happy love, and yours!.
But my simple impression of the difference between that preserved on the urn and that which is real is that the urn remains physically whereas what it describes no longer "remains" (if we are talking of the technical love of a particular instance) or is a generalised pictoral representation (of the concept)!.
It's a difficult question to explore extensively, especially on Yahoo! answers!. Maybe it would be interesting if you considered writing an explorative essay on the difference!. I'd love to read it!. :)Www@QuestionHome@Com
My understanding is that there is no difference - it is precisely the same sort of love, but the momentary instant of "new", "happy", "warm !.!.!. passion" is frozen in time on the urn, never to advance through time to an inevitably older, more chaotic and unsatisfying state of post-love in the future!.
Keats is playing here with the scientific principle of entropy!. He implies that love, like any natural system, can only decay and grow more chaotic with time, and imagines time's irreversible flow stopped and preserved forever on the changeless urn!. But he also reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics!. Whereas the physical law states that heat increases over time as other forms of "free energy" are converted into kinetic energy (i!.e!. heat), Keats seems to imply that the "warm" original love decays over time into merely a "burning forehead"!. The reverse should be true, with the forehead's heat dissipating into the surrounding system and leaving the lover cold and the rest of the universe slightly warmer!.Www@QuestionHome@Com