I want this post to focus solely on Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn:
1. What is this urn all about?
2. Where does he get these crazy ideas from?
3. What the heck is with that last line? Beauty is truth, truth beauty? I mean, in that case, the most beautiful thing in the world is a truthful circle.
Happy Thinking,
Mr. B
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I think that everyone has to appreciate the value of truth. It's what holds everything together. If we all lied about everything, and everything we perceived was a lie, nothing would ever get done (truth is beauty). Everything that has beauty, regardless of someone else's viewpoint of it, is exists and no one can refute existence (beauty truth). Just my two cents that probably has some hole in it, seeing as this is the most written about peice of poetry ever.
ReplyDeleteBEAUTY
ReplyDelete- noun
1. the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).
TRUTH
- noun
1. the true or actual state of a matter.
Beauty, in my opinion, is misleading. How can something be truthful when it depends entirely on preference?
Truth is absolute, there is no denying it. How can the most beautiful thing in the world be a "truthful" circle? How is truth circular? Truth doesn't revert back on itself, it's linear.
I guess I don't see why truth can not be circular. I've often heard the description 'web of lies', but never anything about the shape of truth. Perhaps the most beautiful thing in the world truly is continually speaking the truth. In that sense, beauty cannot be distorted by lies or misconceptions. Life and beauty are to remain in their most pure and honest form. Of course the measure of beauty is and most likely will always be debateable and considered subjective, but I have always found beauty in the natural and pure state of things. What can be more natural and pure than the truth?
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed this work of Keats. I thought it was creative of the poet to describe the paintings as paused moments of time. For example, in the first painting, Keats claims the couple will never have the opportunity to kiss, for each is painted prior to carrying out the action. In addition, the poet speaks of another painting in which leaves that will never fall.
ReplyDeleteThe final statement of the poem, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," can be interpreted in several ways. I believed the statement to mean beauty is true to its observer. The opinion of beauty changes among viewers. Beauty is true to the two individuals involved in a relationship because it is in the eye of the beholder. In addition, the truth of a relationship is beautiful. A truthful and committed pair is beautiful.
Also, the final statement relates to the entire poem. When observing a painting, one is true to his opinion of what he believes to be beautiful; beauty is truthful. If an image depicts the truth, it is beautiful; the truth is beauty.
No matter how much the truth may hurt, it always feels better once you actually know it.
ReplyDeleteSugar-coating is not always the best option even if it makes you feel better at the moment.
Every scandal or rumor ever talked about always has some truth in it, and the truth is what keeps the rumor going, it's what makes it so entertaining, that it's actually happening, or somewhat happening.
Truth is beauty because it's dependable, with truthout truth, one has lost reality and your just unstable.
I think what Keats might be saying with his last line could be that truth is always going to be beautiful, no matter what. Telling the truth about everything may end up leading to some negative consequences, such as confessing to a crime or something, but the spirit itself will be pure and clean with no lies to infect it. That is the truth is beauty part, I believe that when he says “beauty is truth”, he is just saying that something that is beautiful will always be truthful to some extent. The most beautiful things in life will be honest and truthful, an example I can think of could be relationships. If someone lies about who they are and pretends to act like someone they aren’t just to be with another person, then the relationship won’t last and it will be built on a lie. It is only when someone acts like who they really are that they will be truly happy in a relationship, and that is beautiful in itself.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Andy. When people tell the truth (whether it's something good or bad) it's most likely to have a positive outcome. But when someone holds the truth in (lying), things can get really UGLY. Truth is beautiful because it keeps people in shape and shows a bond in one's relationship. Lies just add up to a dangerous event that will eventually breakout and haunt those involved.
ReplyDeleteI like the last line and think that it offers a lot of things to think about. In relationships, for example, honesty is necessary and without i the relationship is meaningless. So in this sense it is beautiful. The truth that there are those in pain while you may be experiencing happiness, is, in contrast, not seen to be a beautiful thing. The truth that someone you love has passed away and will no longer be there for you to rely on is not viewed as a beautiful thing. There and many situations that you can apply this last line to and make the line fit or make the line seem to be a lie.
ReplyDeleteBeauty is temporary and truth is forever. Beauty is conditional and it can only be given to you. You give truth by speaking and showing it. Truth is like the permanent pictures on the urn. Truth no matter is an everlasting fact. Truth is the real beauty and beauty is the temporary truth. Without truth there would not be a ‘beauty’.
ReplyDeletethe urn is a depiction of the many elements of life, blissful and serene, complex and pure; things that shape one's life until they die. The truth in life is the things we find beautiful, the things that move us to tears or laughter, the things we rememeber in the some part of our spirit. This beauty is conditional for each person, it's different for everyone, but no less signifigant for each. The beauty of morning, or love or passion or knowledge or success or even failure, in the sense that it can make you stronger. Beauty is anything tainted with magic, touched with purpose, importance or value. All these things are true, real, and definite for each person, and all these things shape the lives led and eventually ended, each creating a seperate but beautiful "urn".
ReplyDeleteI agree with Luke so much on this one. Beauty can be very misleading. Just because something has beauty doesn't mean that it has truth, or is perfect. Things can be sugar-coated, having an outward beauty but the inside might be that of pain or hatred. Truth is perfect. You can't deny or change it. I think that truth is beauty. But beauty isn't always necessarily truth.
ReplyDeleteThe urn has created a story and is telling it. I think that the poem also means that in order to get your point across you don't need to say things harshly. There is a peaceful way to go about getting things done. Like being truthful...imagine that. It then speaks of a great love. It also questions eternity and well it really exists.
ReplyDeleteI think the last phrase is saying that truth and beauty go hand in hand. Without one you can not have the other. I like what Greg said about truth being beauty. When you can trust others you want to be around them. You want have a "beautiful atmosphere."
I think that truth can be a circle. If you are a truthful person and say truthful things it, others can lead that back to you and see the kind of character you have. Truth does not necessarily revert back to itself, but it goes back to the person saying it.
Kelly Austin, your post sounds very poetic. :) I love it!
Ummm okay this is a tough one to write about. I can see easily how the truth can be beautiful because of it's simplicity and honest nature, but it took a little more thinking to figure out how beauty is truth. What I came up with is: beauty is beauty to a person no matter what anything is said about it by any other person. It's completely objective-as in, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, if something is perceived to be beautiful, it cannot be a lie, even if the beauty has been falsely gained, as in plastic surgery (though I haven't seen much beauty produced by that but not the point).
ReplyDeleteKelly R. must've read my mind when she said that beauty can't be a lie. When something is beautiful, it's amazing, it's wondrous, it's TRUE. In that person's mind whatever that beautiful thing is, it is the truest thing in the world.
ReplyDeleteClearly the last line is open to various interpretation, but to begin with I thought Keats’s way of describing the urn was interesting. It seems as though each picture is a puzzle piece to the next that keeps Keats and the reader wondering, but time is frozen on this urn so some events we are left to assume if we would like. The man on the urn seems to always be chasing after the woman he loves. I think this is what elaborates to the last line to an extent, as he is chasing after something that seems beautify and truthful to his own being. In my own assumptions, the urn itself and the scene of sacrifice holds truth that death is apparent, but the life we live before that is beautiful, therefore promoting a truthful circle of life and death. We are attracted to life and death such as we are attracted to beauty and look at beauty as being truthful and truth as being beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI'm fairly sure the urn is about the person's life. Or an exageration of it. I can't explain Keat's work, if I wanted to.
ReplyDeleteBeauty can be many things, strength, love, virtue, acceptance,etc. But when a person or people know that truth is beauty, that is a beautiful thing. I liked Dakota's explanation in class, it's stuck to me this day. It was that even though a rape victim had been violated, the fact that they accepted that it happend makes it beautiful. Why? Because it means that person is on the road to recovery. That they can live a better life, even though they went through such hardships. That's what it means to me.
I believe this poem shall, in Keat's own words, "tease us out of though as doth eternity".
ReplyDeleteI like all of the arguments that have been presented here, each of them add a new aspect to a nearly in exhaustible subject, but I can't help wondering how this all ties in to the urn? Those immortal people, forever at the most joyous occasion of their lives, perhaps, what do they care about telling the truth, being honest, or what constitutes beauty? Why is that the moral of this story? Shouldn't it be something about timelessness or weddings or.. trees, for that matter. I don't see how the last lines play in to all this. I mean, if it means that honesty is beautiful, that seems kind of random doesn't it? Where did it talk about honesty before? Without those last lines, I would have said you were supposed to take away some knowledge about time, mortality, moments in life or the aspects of change, not "honesty". That truly puzzles me. Unless I'v got it backwards, and it's not so much that truth is beauty, but that the beauty shown on the urn is the "truth". But if that's the case, why is that something that is "what we know on earth, and all we need to know"? Unless this is a really shallow poem about the joys of sex, which I kinda doubt, just because that's not usually what constitutes the "timeless classics". I don't know. :/
I think the urn allows us to acknowledge the value of truth and how saying truth, no matter if its a good thing or a bad thing at the time, will always have a positive outcome in the end. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and that beauty is the truth to that person.
ReplyDeletei, like Eileen, agree that the last line of the poem is opean to interpretation. i donot believe that the author wanted everyone extract the same message from his words. Infact i believe that most poets, much like painters and musitions, wan ppl to use there work to envoke thoughts and or emotions all there own. as for the urn i can say that i understand it all to be that death is truth and truth is enlightenment.
ReplyDeleteI think that the images Keats described were probably derived from Grecian art and mythology. But that last line about truth and beauty just doesn’t seem to fit. Maybe it was just a striking though he had that he felt he needed to incorporate somehow; but knowing Romantic poets that just couldn’t be it.
ReplyDeleteI suppose this can be taken on how you perceive either truth or beauty. If you consider the truth to be absolute, then beauty exists indefinitely. However, if you consider beauty to be “in the eye of the beholder”, then that makes truth subjective. But then what is truth? Right and wrong? Or the public understanding of right and wrong? That excludes outliers who believe in a different set of goods and evils, thereby altering their perception of beauty.
Urk. But that means that if my idea of BEAUTY doesn’t coincide with someone else’s than one of us is crazy because our truths won’t match up either. Well crud, I do believe I just talked myself in a huge nonsensical circle. A circle of TRUTH.
This blog and these answers just support Eileen’s idea about the last line just being open to interpretation, because I bet if we read every paper, thesis, and thought about this poem we would agree with a part of each.