Keats' to Autumn

An Analysis of Keats' "To Autumn"

John Keats' "To Autumn" is a kind of "companion piece" to another English poem, "Ode to Evening," by William Collins -- a poem very much in the mind of Keats when he seat to work on "Autumn." Inspired by the English countryside, Keats, like Williams, evokes nature's reflection of the poet's own emergence from youthfulness to adulthood. Composed only two years before his death, there is already in this work a sense of the imminent end awaiting the young poet -- who is even still at his most fruitful. "To Autumn" carries with it the dichotomous theme of life in its fullness, haunted by "mists" and mellowness and a creeping kind of melancholy that portends the harvest. This paper will analyze Keats' "To Autumn" and show how the poet uses imagery, personification, and structure to illuminate and convey the fullness of...
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