The first stanza of ‘To Autumn’ is purely descriptive, telling us about an English autumn. Autumn is personified in the poem and there is no sense of the poet in this stanza, which ties in with the idea of man’s role in autumn not being important. From the very beginning of the poem, Keats establishes a calm and mellow tone by using lazy, soft sounds in his alliteration. He begins to personify autumn in the second line where he calls it the ‘close-bosom friend of the maturing sun;’. Also, by saying that the sun is maturing, Keats introduces the idea that autumn is the season in which living things grow older, unlike spring, when everything is fresh and new. Keats continues to personify the sun, also identifying it as a male (‘conspiring with him’). The idea of the two conspiring, continues through this stanza. The use of the word ‘conspiring’ rather than plotting or planning, makes what the sun and autumn are doing sound suspicious – as if they are doing something, but no one knows quite what or how they are doing it, as if it is a secret. Keats first begins twisting the word order in the fourth line, very early on in the poem, where he says ‘the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;’. It is a very effective use of twisted word order, because it links to the idea of the vines being twisted themselves. Towards the end of this stanza, Keats is building up the lines, pausing at the end of each. The last few lines talk about what the sun and autumn are doing together - plumping the nut shells, causing flowers to bloom and confusing the bees by making the winter warmer.
The second stanza is addressing autumn and opens with the question ‘Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?’. This sort of poetic, archaic language is very different in tone to the opening section of the poem and it is a definite personification of autumn. After having identified the sun as male in the first stanza, Keats shows us that he believes autumn to be a woman, talking of her hair being ‘soft-lifted by the winnowing wind’. This stanza is devoted to telling the reader of autumn’s role in the harvest, first saying it is the reaper, and then the gleaner who picks up the pieces after a harvest. Also, continuing the idea of autumn being female, Keats talks of steadying ‘thy laden head across a brook’ as though autumn is a female labourer with the fruits on her head to carry. Although nature is not actually as this stanza shows it to be, the romanticism in Keats’s language makes it seem idealistic.
In the final stanza of the poem, Keats appears to leave his role of the observer of autumn, and we have a much stronger sense of the poet. Rather than talking to autumn about her role in the harvest, Keats begins to bring sadder ideas into the poem as autumn closes. Keats died of consumption (caused by TB) and would have known roughly when he was going to die. Because this poem was written half a year before he died, it is possible that as well as showing the season coming to a close toward the end of the poem, there is also an element of Keats’ own life ending. This stanza is opened with another question – ‘Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?’. This question takes us to another season, the season in the past which led to autumn. Keats then returns to autumn, saying ‘Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,’, as though he is reassuring autumn that she is just as good as spring. However, there is another connection to spring in the fourth line from the end, where Keats talks of ‘full-grown lambs’ on the hills. These would have been spring-born lambs, now ready to be slaughtered as winter approaches and autumn comes to a close. In the last two lines of his poem, Keats introduces winter to us, proving that autumn has finally ended; ‘The red-breast whistles from a garden croft’ and ‘gathering swallows twitter in the skies’. The robin is associated with winter and Christmas, definitely not autumn, and the swallows in the sky show that winter has come because they are migrating to a warmer place. There is definitely a sense of death towards the end of the poem, linking back to the idea that the poem is also to die with Keats himself dying.
‘Spring’ is a much shorter poem, however it too has a very strong sense of the season in it. There is a clear difference between the two stanzas and the octave establishes and describes Spring, much like the first verse of Keats’ poem did for autumn. The opening line of Hopkins’ poem is a statement, ‘Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –‘ and the dash after the sentence leads to a description of why nothing is ‘so beautiful as Spring’. Again, similar to Keats, Hopkins begins to use alliteration to create a certain mood from the second line of the poem, where he writes ‘weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush’. Both poets use soft letters and long vowel sounds - as well as creating the mood in the poems, these long vowels also cause the reader to slow the words down in order to pronounce them correctly. Hopkins also changes the word order around in his poem, similar to how Keats does in his ode to autumn. Hopkins did not publish his poems and therefore did not have to worry about pleasing anyone. This inspired Hopkins to develop his own poetic methods and famously change the rhythm of sonnets. He created inscape (the individual or essential quality of a thing) and instress (the energy or stress that holds the inscape together).
The second stanza of this poem is devoted to asking more philosophical and thoughtful questions about the origins of spring, much like Keats’ last verse. He opens the sestet with a question (also like Keats) -‘What is all this juice and all this joy?’ – which is basically asking where spring comes from. This stanza is much more religious than the first. Hopkins was obtained as a Jesuit priest in the summer of 1877, shortly after writing this poem, explaining the biblical references in the poem. Hopkins takes us right back to where the earth began to talk about the origins of the season, going back to the ‘Eden garden’ – this is also the first biblical reference of the stanza and poem. There are other religious ideas later in the stanza – ‘Christ, lord’ and ‘O maid’s child’ for example. The ending of Hopkins’ poem seems to have less to do with spring and more to do with the bible and religion.
Both of these poems begin with the establishment and description of the season, and close with more thoughtful ideas about their origins. The techniques used by the poets to reveal the qualities of the seasons are quite similar – for example, both poets use a lot of alliteration with soft letters and sounds. Both poets also use long vowel sounds, twisted word order and imagery to portray their seasons to the reader. Hopkins’ poem relies mainly on the stereotypes of spring such as ‘racing lambs’ and ‘glassy peartree leaves’ to reach his reader, although he picks up on some details that we would not necessarily relate to spring – for example, the thrush. However, in Keats poem there are less stereotypical elements - instead, Keats personifies autumn in his poem. Portraying autumn as a woman and talking about ‘her’ role in the harvest makes it much more believable and realistic for the reader. Also, there is constant description of what is happening to the poet’s surroundings as autumn affects them, making it much easier for the reader to picture and imagine it. Keats shows autumn ending towards the end of his poem, which is very effective because in the same stanza, Keats briefly talks of Spring. In this particular stanza Keats manages to show what happens before and after autumn, as well as autumn itself. Overall, I think that Keats poem is more successful than Hopkins at revealing the qualities of the seasons.
Keira Woodward