The poem itself is an ode to an urn- a vase. The vase has
images painted onto it which Keats describes in detail, yet without explicitly
stating they are paintings and instead describing what each painting is as
though the people on the vase are truly people frozen in time. “Fair youth,
beneath the trees, thou canst not leave”( 15). These people are stuck eternally
in their tasks. The youth can never leave the tree he is under because he was
painted there in the scene, and his next action will never be known. In this
way, they are immortalized. “When old age shall this generation waste, Thou
shalt remain, in midst of other woe” (46-47).
Taking this concept, we could compare it to anything. I will
be taking a few examples from each category and describing them in relativity
to this poem’s main idea- starting with art.
The Mona Lisa is a famous painting by Da Vinci that is
generally recognizable to everyone. Even if the painting was suddenly burned up
in an unfortunate accident, it would still live on. This is made mainly
possible by the fact that it’s been photographed- obviously by the way that I
can show you this image here- and will always be there, but also by the fact
that’s it’s been painted and we’ll always know it.
The main point of the poem is to say that these figures are
immortalized in their actions-well similarly Mona Lisa is immortalized in her
pose. She will forever be a figure who is sat there with a trace of a smile,
and we will never know her next action.
The painting has captured a moment and made it eternal. Here
are a few other famous painted scenes immortalized
This is easy to say for paintings, the poem itself being
about a painting (though it so happens to be done on a vase). Yet, the concepts
of the poem could just as easily be applied to music, movies, T.V shows, and
other works of literature.
These things exist now, and say in fifty years we go back to
our favorite song, has that song changed?
Honestly, it doesn’t even matter if these things are
destroyed because it’s not even the things themselves, but what the things were
displaying. The urn could have been shattered into a million pieces. It doesn’t
change the fact that the images on the urn were once presently there
representing one particular scene that will never change.
What is that you say? T.V shows and movies aren’t one still
scene that will be there forever? That’s right, they’re not. They are moving
frames. However, that isn’t going to change a thing. Moving images are simply
that-moving images. They will be the same images on loop forever, so,
essentially they are depicting scenes that are the same and that will live on.
Let’s take this scene from the Avenger’s.
In fifty years when we are again listening to our song, say
we decided to look back again to this movie as well.
Robert Downey Jr. isn’t fifty years older, and you find Jeremy
Renner and Chris Evans to looks exactly the same as well. This is because the
moment is captured.
Hopefully by now you are getting my point. To be succinct about
it- art, the written word, the moving image- they are all forms of
immortalization.
My last point on this is going to be summed up with this quote from Doctor Who.
My last point on this is going to be summed up with this quote from Doctor Who.
The Doctor: Not once
you've read it. Once we know it's coming, it's written in stone.”
If nobody except one person saw the work of art, or the writing, or
the movie, is it still immortalized? I think the answer to that would be yes
because it is still a scene stuck in time, and a moment that has happened.
Two things:
ReplyDelete"Dust in the Wind" by Kansas
and more interestingly "The Exiles" by Bradbury
Joking, a very interesting read, but I have to disagree with you. There are a lot of cases of works of 'art' being lost and forgotten because people didn't want to remember.
"He who controls the past controls the future, he who controls the future controls the present."
We will forget because we can, I took the poem to be more saying that we shouldn't forget but we will, its convenient.
Side note, "The Exiles" is a story of mankind killing off the worlds of books because we don't want to deal with them anymore.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very interesting take and, unlike Calvin, I agree with you. Although we may not want to remember, or perhaps the image has faded through time, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there or that it will not keep inspiring. Somethings will be lost and forgotten, and in some cases never found, that is true, but once a mark is made, action is said and film is rolling there will be a record until it turns to dust. And even on Calvin's take on it- that is true too. Humanity will forget, its part of our nature. And as unfortunate as that is we will have to build on the records of today to form the marks for tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI greatly enjoyed your comparison of the poem to all art/movies/books/etc. I agree with you that art is a way of forever capturing people,culture, architecture, etc. One might even say that art is a way of capturing the spirit of a people during a certain time frame. History gives us the facts of the past and art describes the spirit of those who lived during that time. Now to Calvin's point, though it is true that art can be destroyed that does not mean that its meaning will be lost. The meaning behind art can be transferred between generations using nonphysical methods, e.g. story-telling.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed that you frequently used the word "vase" because whenever I see that word I really, I mean really want to say it like "voss" like boss moss floss. Is it just me or is that a fun word? I think it is interesting that Keats states the people who are depicted on the urn are frozen, impervious to time (but not really) yet he doesn't also show an opinion that the creator of the urn is also immortalized because through the art the creator's actions live on. It is strange Keats thinks the painted figures will live frozen "in midst of other woe" because if someone is frozen in time, then he would not be thinking because thinking requires time--since one cannot thinking when time is stopped, one cannot think about sorrow or "woe" or anything at all. About the Mona Lisa, I don't think that just because it was painted we will always know about it/it is immortalized--ex: what if some strange, fascist bacteria in yogurt takes over our brains and destroys every Mona Lisa portrayal in every book, museum, and internet chat page before the bacteria dies and we regain control of our senses only to realize or not that every memory of the Mona Lisa has been obliterated like Gilderoy Lockhart's memories? Thus the Mona Lisa would not "live on" if it was destroyed by said bacteria. Nice pics. I like your thought of there being some kind of universal record of knowledge, and I almost get what you are saying when you say every moment of the universe is composed of still shots and the fact that these still shots once existed means simply that there is no way to make it so that they have ever not existed. However, perhaps a thinking mind/being may never be aware of these still shots even though they have existed. I think it is interesting that you say we will never know what happens next to Mona Lisa or in other words what the next still shot is. This makes me think of cause and effect and how people believe that one thing must cause the next thing to occur, but this law of nature does not seem to even apply because of the fact that the universe seems to have no beginning and no end. Also, if one considers the universe to be infitinte, then perhaps that means there have been an infinite number of ways that still shots have been placed in regards to space and time and perhaps two still shots may be placed one right after the other in regards to space and time so that in one infinitesimally minute split second of time you have the Mona Lisa frozen in time whereas in the next moment you have an entirely different still shot and there seems to be no cause and effect relationship between these two still shots, but I don't think this is what you are talking about. Heck yes to scene from Avengers. Also I think the people on the urn do change with time in that your perceptions and opinions about the people on the paintings inevitably change from microsecond to microsecond because no two moments are exactly the same, especially if you look at quantum strings and vibrations. Now that I think about it, I don't know if there is such a thing as a frozen instant of time because time is always changing and moving. I was hoping you would have something to say about the line in the poem about "truth is beauty, beauty is truth." To me, it seems like you are saying a lot of different of opinions and are not really clear about the point you are trying to make, as expressed by you many different views and blatantly expressed by your line, "Hopefully by now you are getting my point." I like your challenging of the human perspective or the idea that the universe is centered around humanity--"if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it still make a sound?" Cool Dr. Who quote.
ReplyDelete"Ode on a Grecian Urn" is one of my favorite poems. I love how it portrays immortality and defines what it truly is. The comparison that you made between the poem and art is well-stated and makes perfect sense. Indeed, it is quite hard to compare a poem about art and immortality to anything specific, which is why I appreciated how you went into every aspect of it. Though it is true that some art or music can be forgotten, they are, in my opinion, still immortal just because they were recorded in the first place.
ReplyDelete