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1. 
   pmiranda2857 Teacher
   High School - 10th Grade

   eNotes Editor

   In "Ode on a Grecian Urn," the poem speaks about an ancient urn painted with two scenes from Greek life. It references Apollo, the god of music and poetry along with his favorite places in Greece, Tempe and Arcady.

   "Observing the figures painted on the urn's surface, the speaker cannot tell whether they are "deities or mortals," whether they exist in Apollo's valley of Tempe or the heaven-like but mortally inhabited region of Arcady."

   'O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
        Of marble men and maidens overwrought
   With forest branches and the trodden weed;'

   The Urn's origin is placed in Attica, another location in Greece. 

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/ode-grecian/summary

   http://www.enotes.com/ode-grecian/text-poem

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   Posted by pmiranda2857 on Thursday June 26, 2008 at 4:34 PM
   
   

2. 
   amy-lepore Teacher
   High School - 12th Grade

   eNotes Editor

   Keats neatly sandwiches his stanzas between the first and last lines which both address the urn:  Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,  and  O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede...Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity

   The first stanza is an introduction, addressing the urn itself.  Who are these people and what are they doing on your sides? What can it mean for those of us just now laying eyes upong you?

   The second stanza introduces the theme of imagination, but by addressing the musician on the urn.  The music we can all hear may not be liked by everyone, but the music we imagine will please us all simply because we imagine that which we like. 

   The third stanza addresses the lover, the musician, the trees which will forever remain in love, young, playing without tiring, and full of green leaves for eternity.  There is nothing to worry about here in this stanza...no sunburn, parched tongue, or broken hearts.

   The fourth stanza questions the priest leading the cow to sacrifice and the absent townspeople about where they are going and what they will do, which all leads to the question: What is the truth about all of this?  We can see and appreciate the beauty, as will many to come.  "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty,"—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
   

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/ode-grecian/summary

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   Posted by amy-lepore on Thursday June 26, 2008 at 7:50 PM
   
   

3. 
   reidalot Teacher
   College - Freshman

   eNotes Editor

   There is a great deal of evidence that supports Keats talking directly to the Urn. First of all, he begins with "Thou" directly addressing the Urn in line one and he repeats "thou" again in line two. Next, still in Stanza One,the poet asks questions of the Urn, as if he were holding a conversation with it, making an inanimate object appear alive: "In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?...What wild ecstasy?"

   Interestingly enough, as the Ode progresses, the poet directly addresses the figures on the Urn. He tells the fair youth to "Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tune" in Stanza Two, and then directs his conversation to the Bold Lover. Keats continues in this vein in Stanza Three as he discusses the tree boughs and the permanence of youthful love as it is portrayed on the Urn.

   Again, in Stanza Four, the poet once more asks questions of the Urn:"Who are these coming to the sacrifice?...and why is the citadel "...emptied of its folk, this pious morn?" Again, the rhetorical questions emphasize the conversation the poet holds with the Urn. Fair proof of Keats talking to the Urn!

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/odeonagrecianurn

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   Posted by reidalot on Friday June 27, 2008 at 6:25 AM