To Autumn & Old To a Nightingale

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“In ‘Old to a nightingale’ and ‘To Autumn’ John Keats’ descriptive powers are at their height.” Demonstrate the truth of this statement by referring closely to “To Autumn” or any three stanzas from ‘Old to a Nightingale’.” ‘To Autumn’ is a transitional poem that celebrates not only the richness of the season but also the exquisiteness of decay. The poem is an ode, which is a single unified strain of exalted lyrical directed to a single purpose. There’s more to a poem than meets the eye. By referring closely to ‘To Autumn’ the writer uses numerous amounts of descriptive languages, which appeal to the senses, and figurative languages. John Keats writes a poem about a typical day of autumn using detailed imagery and vast description. In the first Stanza Keats briefly describes autumn as a season of mistiness and fruitfulness and jumps into personification, suggesting that autumn and the sun are friends ‘Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;’. He uses a large quantity of verbs such as ‘budding’, ‘fill’, ‘plump’ and ‘swell’ which all brings the feeling of abundance. So because autumn is a season of harvest that is associated with largesse, richness and the cornucopia, using these verbs compliments the season of autumn well. Keats describes autumn with specific and vivid images of an apple tree that has so many apples on it that it begins to bend and the ripeness penetrates deep to the very center of the fruit. "To bend...and fill," and "To swell...and plump," is an example of parallelism used by Keats to describe the bountifulness of autumn. In the second stanza Keats returns to personification, and asks a rhetorical question, “Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?” The word store, again, suggest the abundance of autumn. The writer continues to personify autumn, “Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;” "Winnowing wind" is an example of

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