NCHS AP English Language

Extra Credit: Rebecca Hall

First, consider the subject matter of the poem. An urn is "mutable to subject or time" yet the events depicted on an urn are unchanging which directly applies to Lena and where she fits in in regard to the world. As the world moves around her, Lena remains unchanged and unmoved; she simply is.

The last six lines of stanza II deal with frozen time, primarily in a negative tone ("never, never canst, nor ever can, etc.). We once again may make the connection of time between Light in August and the poem.

Stanza III uses some curious imagery which the reader can't help but relate to Light in August, particularly the tree which can't shed its leaves and the lover. Just as a tree which refuses to let go of its leaves, its lifesource as well as a physical part of itself, Lena refuses to let go of her lover, her "leaves," if you will.

The poet who penned "Ode on a Greecian Urn" conjures images of an empty town, similar to the small home town of Lena, Doane's Mill.

I think the largest connection we may draw between the two pieces is that time is inmutable, unchangable. Lena is a representation of a subject unchanged by time and progress, as that of an urn.

-Rebecca Hall

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/urn.html#analysis

posted by Rebecca @ 11:50 AM