Lesson Plans

Assignment to have been completed: Students should have read “To Autumn” pp. 701-702 in Perrine’s Literature. They should also have written out responses to questions 1-5 that follow the poem and should have completed the AP multiple-choice items.

Objectives:

1. To review the definition and categories of imagery
2. To apply the concept of imagery to the analysis of “To Autumn”
3. To practice multiple-choice strategies

Activities:

• A. Respond to “To Autumn” by John Keats on p. 783.

  • Vocabulary:

    • hook (17): a sickle
    • barred (25): narrowly marked, as a stripe or band
    • sallows (28): broad-leaved European willows
    • bourn (30): a boundary; a limit
    • croft (32): a small enclosed field or pasture near a house

  • How many kinds of imagery do you find in the poem? Give examples of each.

    The first stanza is dominated by images of fullness and tension, a kinesthetic-organic imagery apparent in such words as “load,” “bend,” “fill,” “swell,” “plump,” “budding,” and “o’er-brimmed.”

    The second stanza places greatest emphasis on visual imagery: “sitting careless on a granary floor,” “Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,” “while thy hook/Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers,” “thou dost keep/Steady thy laden head across a brook,” and “by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.”

    The third stanza stresses auditory images, some of them onomatopoetic: wailful, bleat, whistles, twitter).

  • Are the images arranged haphazardly or are they carefully organized? In answering this question, consider (a) what aspect of autumn each stanza particularly concerns, (b) what kind of imagery dominates each stanza, and © what time of the season each stanza presents. Is there any progression in time of day?

    The poem is structured in time, the three stanzas presenting a progression both in season of the year and in the time of day. The first stanza presents early autumn: fruit and nuts are coming to ripeness. The second stanza present mid-autumn: harvesting is in process. The third stanza presents late autumn: the harvest over, stubble-plains remain, and the swallows gather for their migration southward.

    In parallel movement, the first stanza presents morning: mists are on the fields and the sun is “maturing” (perhaps in the triple sense of climbing the sky, moving toward the winter solstice, and bringing the fruits to maturity). The second stanza presents midday and afternoon: the reaper, overcome by lassitude and the fume of poppies, sleeps on a “half-reaped” furrow, and the worker at the cider press watches “the last oozings hours by hours.” The third stanza presents evening: sunset streaks the clouds and touches the stubble-plains “with rosy hue,” crickets and birds resume their songs.

  • What is the autumn personified as in stanza 2? Is there any suggestion of personification in the other two stanzas?

    In stanza 1 Autumn is a “bosom-friend” of the sun, conspiring with the sun to bless the vines. The fecundity of nature is stanza 1 results apparently from the union of female Autumn and male sun.

    In stanza 2 the speaker personifies Autumn in various roles as a harvest worker.

    In stanza 3 the personification is less specific. Nonetheless, the speaker addresses (apostrophizes) Autumn, bidding her not to think about the songs of Spring.

  • Although the poem is primarily descriptive, what attitude toward transience and passing beauty is implicit in it?

    Transience is a favorite theme in Keats’ poetry. However, in other poems he treats transience with more anguish over its reality. In this poem, Autumn (symbolic of the latter part of life) has its beauty (its “music”) as well as spring (symbolic of youth); and the images of the third stanza. though touched with melancholy (the day is “soft-dying,” the small gnats “mourn,” the light wind “lives or dies,” the swallows gather to depart), are as lovely as those in the first (when one thinks “warm days will never cease”). The mildness and beauty of the images throughout the poem, the peacefulness especially of those in the third stanza, and the assurance that Autumn has its music too, all reveal a serene acceptance of passing life.

Assignment for next class meeting: Read “Chapter 5 - Figurative Language 1: Simile, Metaphor, Personification, Apostrophe, Metonymy,” pp. 714-724 in Perrine’s Literature. Write down responses to Exercises 1-10 at the conclusion of the chapter. Finally, jot down one or two examples of metaphor, simile, personification, apostrophe, metonymy, and synecdoche not given in the book.