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SCMP Reporter

John Keats is one of the most famous poets  in the English language. He was born in 1795 and died at the age of just 26. His poem To Autumn is in the form of an ode. It is a poem of celebration. The subject matter is straightforward so we can concentrate  on his poetic techniques this week - how he  achieves the desired effects with his writing.

Read it aloud

One of the most important aspects of poetic technique is sound. You have to read the poem aloud in order to hear what Keats is saying. The meaning of the poem lies in not just   its words, but in the sound of its lines.

'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun,

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run'.

Alliteration

This is when a poet repeats the initial letter of a word. So 'mists, mellow and maturing' all show alliteration of the letter 'm'. This letter is a soft consonant. Its repetition gives a soft and gentle feel to the scene being described. There is no harshness.  Think of how a landscape looks when smothered in mist. Nothing is distinctive. The soft 'm' helps to create that feeling.

Assonance

The word 'assonance' refers to the effect of vowel sounds in a poem. The vowel sounds in many of these words are long and open.  Say the words 'bosom, fruitfulness, maturing'. As a result of the long, open and similar vowel sounds, a sense of great richness is created. Keats wants us to experience the sense of autumn when all the fruits are ripe and there is a feeling of fulfilment and completeness. The assonance contributes to this.

Syntax

This refers to sentence  structures.  Look carefully at the punctuation. Each of the stanzas is a complete sentence. Keats does not need full stops to control the flow of the poem. He does it through other forms of punctuation and line-endings. We feel as if we are  building up ideas in a long chain. The sentence swells through the long stanza just like the swelling of the ripe fruit he is describing.

Consonance

'And still more, later flowers for the bees

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.'

Just as assonance describes the effect of the interplay of vowel sounds, consonance shows  how the consonant sounds work together in order to create the effect.

In the first stanza, we saw the effects of the alliteration of the letter 'm'. Here we see that letter being repeated in the middle of words. We call this consonance, and here it again creates that sense of fullness: summer, brimmed, clammy. It is as if your mouth is full of the fruit as you are speaking!

He is talking about the bees going from one flower to another to pollinate them. Listen to how the consonant 's' at the end of the lines mimics the buzzing sound of the bees as they move around.

A note of sadness

I will leave you to find other examples  of the techniques I have mentioned in the poem.  There's one last thought though. The poem is a celebration of the harvest of autumn. Yet Keats is also  aware  that good things in life cannot  last forever. The poem ends with the line:

'And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.'

The  birds  are getting ready to migrate for the winter. Autumn is a wonderful season. Keats leaves us with the awareness that winter is on its way.

To Autumn by John Keats (HKCEE Literature)



Master of poetic technique