A Study Guide for John Keats's "To Autumn"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for John Keats's "To Autumn," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535841238

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To Autumn

John Keats

1820

Introduction

To Autumn is a poem by the English romantic poet John Keats. It was written in 1819 and published the following year in his collection Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems. Keats was living in Winchester in the county of Hampshire in southern England at the time that he wrote the poem. Every day he walked for an hour before dinner. On Sunday, September 19, 1819, he walked along the Itchin River and across the meadows in fine weather. Two days later, he wrote a letter to his friend Joshua Reynolds, in which he described the genesis of To Autumn:

How beautiful the season is now—How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it…. I never lik'd stubble fields so much as now—Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow a stubble plain looks warm—in the same way that some pictures look warm—this struck me so much in my sunday's walk that I composed upon it.

To Autumn is the last of the six great odes Keats wrote in 1819, and it has always been recognized as one of his finest poems. Reviewers have regarded it as one of the most perfect poems in English literature. It is notable for its serene appreciation of the autumn season, the sense of acceptance it conveys of the passage of time and the seasons, and the way in which it presents and reconciles opposites. To Autumn can be found in most editions of Keats's poems.

Author Biography

Keats was born on October 31, 1795, in London, England. His father died after falling from his horse when Keats was only eight, and his mother died six years later in 1810. In 1811, when Keats was fifteen, he was taken out of school by his guardian, Richard