Presenter:
Two hundred years ago, between April and September of 1819, a young John Keats managed to compose all of his so-called Great Odes, a half-dozen poems that rank among the finest lyrics in English. What entitles these poems to their claims of greatness? How did an ex-pharmacology student without advanced education, not yet 24 years of age, manage to compose them? In what sense do they add up to something that coheres as a series or as a narrative? In pursuit of these questions, this session looks at four of these poems in chronological order: “Ode to Psyche,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and “To Autumn.”
**This presentation is full.**