John Keats is perhaps most famous for his Odes, poems written in 1819 at a particularly harsh time of his life, when he had already been stricken with the tuberculosis that would eventually kill him at a very early age. There is a great emphasis on suffering and longing in these poems, which shows the great depths of melancholy to which Keats had fallen, as he suffered not only from illness but also unrequited love. In these poems, Keats seems to be telling us that melancholy is an integral part of experience which must be accepted willingly as an inevitable element in life. The poet himself seems to dominate the poems with his longing to escape from the world of human suffering to an infinitely superior domain in his own imagination.

Which poems are dealt with in the concordance?

• Ode to Psyche
• Ode on a Grecian Urn
• Ode on Melancholy
• Ode to a Nightingale
• To Autumn

Some words and general themes in the poems and questions to ask about them:-

Click on the keywords to go straight to that part of the concordance.

• Love - Look at the concordance to find out how many times the word love occurs within the Odes. Which poems are concerned with love? Which do not mention love at all? Do they still have a sense of the emotion within nevertheless?

• No, nor, not - Use of these negative words occur fairly often. Think about how Keats looks upon real life in a negative sense. How many times does he use the word no? How does its use and the use of nor and not emphasise his melancholy?

• Beauty - This word occurs on a number of occasions. How does Keats see beauty as an ideal in his odes? How does he see the progression of beauty, as something that withers and dies or something to be preserved?

• The Seasons - One of the Odes is clearly about one particular season. How does Keats emphasise the moods felt in different seasons, not only in autumn, but also in spring and summer? How do these seasons feature in To Autumn?

• Death - How does death feature as a theme in Ode to a Nightingale? Does its presence linger in any of the other odes?

• Greek mythology - How does Keats use this as a recurring image in his odes? How does he use it as a method of escape? Do you think he is trying to imitate life with art? Look particularly at Ode to Psyche and Ode on a Grecian Urn.