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NOTES ON THE ODE ON A GRECIAN URN.
This poem is not, apparently, inspired by any one actual vase, but by many Greek sculptures, some seen in the British Museum, some known only from engravings. Keats, in his imagination, combines them all into one work of supreme beauty.
Perhaps Keats had some recollection of Wordsworth's sonnet 'Upon the sight of a beautiful picture,' beginning 'Praised be the art.'
Page 113. l. 2. foster-child. The child of its maker, but preserved and cared for by these foster-parents.
l. 7. Tempe was a famous glen in Thessaly.
Arcady. Arcadia, a very mountainous country, the centre of the Peloponnese, was the last stronghold of the aboriginal Greeks. The people were largely shepherds and goatherds, and Pan was a local Arcadian god till the Persian wars (c. 400 B.C.). In late Greek and in Roman pastoral poetry, as in modern literature, Arcadia is a sort of ideal land of poetic shepherds.
Page 114. ll. 17-18. Bold . . . goal. The one thing denied to the figures—actual life. But Keats quickly turns to their rich compensations.
Page 115. ll. 28-30. All . . . tongue. Cf. Shelley's To a Skylark:
Thou lovest— but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
ll. 31 seq. Keats is now looking at the other side of the urn. This verse strongly recalls certain parts of the frieze of the Parthenon (British Museum).
Page 116. l. 41. Attic, Greek.
