Structure
"Ode on Indolence" relies on ten line stanzas with a rhyme scheme that begins with a Shakespearian quatrain (ABAB) and ends with a Miltonic sestet (CDECDE). This pattern is used in "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn", which further unifies the poems in their structure in addition to their themes.
The poem contains a complicated use of assonance (the repetition of vowel sounds), as evident in line 19, "O why did ye not melt, and leave my sense", where the pairs ye/leave and melt/sense share vowel sounds. A more disorganized use of assonance appears in line 31, "A third time pass'd they by, and, passing, turn'd", in which the pairs third/turn'd, time/by, and pass'd/passing share vowel sounds. The first line exemplifies the poem's consistent iambic pentameter scansion:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| One | morn | be- | fore | me | were | three | fig- | ures | seen. |
Keats occasionally inverts the accent of the first two syllables of each line or a set of syllables within the middle of a line. 2.3% of the internal syllables are inverted in the "Ode on Indolence", whereas only 0.4% of the internal syllables of his other poems contain such inversions.
Read more about this topic: Ode On Indolence
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“Communism is a proposition to structure the world more reasonably, a proposition for changing the world. As such, we have to analyze it and, if we deem it reasonable, act upon it.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)
“There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)