Ode On Melancholy - Sexuality

Sexuality

Although the poem contains no overt sexual references, allegations of a hidden sexuality in the poem’s text appear in Christopher John Murray’s ‘’Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era.’’ Murray suggests that the poem instructs the reader to approach melancholy in a manner that will result in the most pleasurable outcome for the reader. The words “burst Joy’s Grape” in line 28 lead Daniel Brass to state:

The height of the joy, the moment when the world can improve no further, is both the end of joy and the beginning of melancholy. A climax implies a dénouement, and ‘bursting Joy’s grape’ involves both the experience of ultimate satisfaction, with the powerful image of the juice bursting forth from a burst grape, and the beginning of a decline.

In The Masks of Keats, Thomas McFarland suggests that Keats's beautiful words and images attempt to combine the non-beautiful subject of melancholy with the beauty inherent in the form of the ode. He too writes that the images of the bursting grape and the "globèd peonies" show an intention by the poet to bring the subject of sexuality into the discussion on melancholy.