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To Autumn - John Keats

1. With close reference to the text, explain why the persona says 'thou has thy music too'

  • "Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?"
    • Spring is usually depicted as a lively and joyful season
      • Spring is when nature comes back to life
    • Autumn is usually depicted as a solemn precursor to the dreaded, bitter Winter
    • Persona is asking for happiness/beauty during a somber sunset where the day is dying
      • "While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day"

  • "In a wailful choir the small gnats mourn"
      • "gnats" are flying insects
      • Mourn the approaching winter
      • Insects usually die or hibernate during winter
  • "Full-grown lambs loud bleat from the hilly bourn"
  • "Hedge-crickets sing; and now with trble soft"
  • "The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft"
  • "gathering swallows twitter in the skies"
      • swallows migrate during winter
    • Persona uses the sounds(or "songs") of autumn to prove that autumn has its own beauty too
    • The questions regarding the Songs of Spring acts as an introduction for the stanza to dispel the notion that Autumn is without beauty
    • Although the music is sad, it is still beautiful
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2. The season of autumn has its own beauty and attractions. Discuss with close reference to the text.

  • "Conspiring with him how to load and bless."
    • Autumn is a season of harvest and bounty

  • To bend with apples, the mossed cottage trees"
  • To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells"
    • Autumn ripens fruits and provides for the farmers
    • Symbolizes prosperity

  • "With sweet kernel; to set budding more."
  • "And still more, later flowers for the bees."
    • "kernels" are seeds that drop to the ground when nuts fall
    • The seeds will later grow into plants
    • Hence, Autumn is not just the season of death but also the sowing of life

  • "And still more, later flowers for the bees."
  • Until they think warm days will never cease,"
      • "warm days" symbolizes good times
  • "For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells."
      • "cells" symbolizes the honeycombs due to the similarity in shape
    • Bees are living prosperously because nectar is aplenty and their honeycombs are full 
    • Bees are unworried about winter

  • "Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook,"
  • "Or by a cider-press/Thou watches the last oozings," 
    • Olfactory and imagery pictures
    • Shows the fruits and harvests of nature provided by Autumn

  • "While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,/And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue."
      • "stubble-plains" are describes as such because the fields are bare after being harvested
    • Beautiful scene of a sunset
    • Signifies the ending of the day, as well as the ending of autumn
*Fun fact*
Autumn sunsets are more vivid than any other time of the year because weather patterns dictate that the air becomes drier so there are less particles in the air to disperse and scatter the light rays, allowing more colors of the spectrum to reach our eyes.


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