Some examples of words which appeal to our auditory sense are contained mostly in stanza 3, where John Keats is discussing Autumn’s song, which many people forget about. Keats reinforces in this stanza that Autumn is just as important as any other season using the expressions,
‘wailful choir the small gnats mourn’, ‘full grown lambs loud bleat..’, ‘hedge crickets sing; and now with treble soft’, ‘red-breast whistles’, ‘gathering swallows twitter in the skies’. These animals seem to be using their own way of communication and singing, reading those lines gives the reader the idea that they are sad. This shows that even the animals are sad that it is the end of Autumn , with the small gnats mourning, the lambs now fully grown, the swallows gathering to migrate for winter and the robin red breasts arriving, one of the many signs of winter approaching, as robins are the symbolic birds of our winters. This shows nature from a fresh perspective as not many people think of all the different animal’s feelings at times like this, but now looking at this poem we can think about the animals and see that they mourn for Autumn.
Alliteration is another common technique used by John Keats, being used several times throughout “To Autumn”. The opening line of the poem includes effective alliteration,
‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’
The ‘M’ sound gets you thinking of the idea that the fruit was perfect, and from another view John Keats could be starting his poem like this because he may think Autumn is a perfect season as throughout the poem Keats constantly glorifies Autumn. Another example of alliteration is used successfully in stanza 2, the effectiveness is the way that the reader gets the sound and can imaging the movement of the wind with the ‘W’ being stressed on in the expression,
‘winnowing wind’.
Ultimately, one last example of alliteration comes in stanza 1,
‘And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core’,
The way that you tend to say the words ‘fill’ and ‘fruit’ is if your mouth is filled, this gives the effect of imagining the great amounts of fruit and how juicy and ripe they are.
One of the main techniques used in the poem by Keats is personification and anthropomorphism. Throughout the poem Keats personifies the sun,
‘Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; conspiring with him how to load and bless..’
This shows that Keats is saying that Autumn and the sun are very friendly and they are planning something and Keats tells us of how the sun and Autumn are conspiring. This appeals heavily to the readers sense of visualisation as you can think of a picture of Autumn and the sun planning and talking. You could also look at the ‘conspiring’ in a more abstract way, as the Latin ‘conspire’ translates to English as to breathe together as one. This shows also how the sun helps Autumn, by ‘breathing’ on the crops to help them flourish and grow. Bees are also personified in stanza 1,
‘For the bees, until they think warm days will never cease, for summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells’.
This is an example of anthropomorphism, letting the bees ‘think’ and have a human mind of their own. ‘Clammy cells’ gives the reader the idea of the bees honeycombs being full with mellifluous, viscous honey, this again had the technique of putting Autumn in a favourable light as john Keats makes out that Autumn is very generous, giving the bees lots of flowers to get pollen and make themselves honey. Then again in stanza 2, the personification of Autumn is extended,
‘Who hath not seen the oft amid thy store?’
This again personifies Autumn as a boring season and as though it does not get out much, but again looking at this in a way of life, this could be the part of life, when all is completed, in Autumn’s point of view, the harvesting and the person starts to get older and not go out as much.
The tone is another technique used especially in stanza 2, when the poppies are mentioned the tone is quite drowsy and soporific, this ties in with the narcotic effect in which poppies are said to have on you,
‘Drows’d with the fume of poppies’
At this point the poem is at a slow and sleepy pace after all of the harvesting, again connecting with the point in someone’s life when they just want to lie back and watch.
Repetition is also used in stanza 2 and is also a good technique, helping to look at life,
Or by a cider-press, with a patent look, thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours’.
This looks at the apples, which were harvested being pressed to be made into cider, the repetition shows us that it took lots of hours and was a very slow process. By having this at the end of stanza 2, going into stanza 3 where Keats looks at the death of Autumn it is appropriate and give the effect of life again, at the dying stage life seems to be going very slow.
John Keats also uses many more techniques one more that I will pick up on is the rhetorical questions which we can see an example of at the very beginning of stanza 3, they ‘death’ stanza,
‘Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?”
This shows that at the end of Autumn things may be confusing and looking at nature, the young may be confused of what is happening and at the dying stage of life, some people die and think that their life has went in quickly and they may think to themselves, where has my life gone?, in a similar way this is a rhetorical question.
Overall, John Keats’ poem ‘To Autumn’, as a reader is my perspective to the definitive of Autumn and reading the poem has changed my way of looking at Autumn and has successfully let the reader see how the writer’s poetic techniques help the reader to view an aspect of human life or nature differently as you still see it as the beginning living your life and dying but this poem shows many stages in between and through the point of nature it shows the animals sadness and confusion of Autumn. I can now see Autumn, not as the season of dying or what comes unnecessarily between Summer and Winter, but a fun filled season and a season of preparation and maybe just the very most important season of the year.
Shaunna Deeney.
Miss Belton.
4.19.