The Essay: An Ode to John Keats

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The Essay

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Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: An Ode to John Keats: Alice Oswald on Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn

Alice Oswald on Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn

An Ode to John Keats

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Alice Oswald explores Keats's great poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn.

Alice Oswald brings together her unique blend of poetic sensibility, classical scholarship and personal impressions as she explores Keats's great poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn.

1819 was a stunningly fertile year for John Keats, when he wrote five of the greatest and most frequently anthologised odes in the English language, fresh-minting phrases now in common use , such as "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.....","Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty....." and "O, for a beaker full of the warm South....." 

All this week, leading contemporary poets each celebrate a single ode, explaining what it means to them. 

From her home in rural Devon, Alice Oswald brings together her unique blend of poetic sensibility, classical scholarship and personal impressions as she explores Keats' great poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn.

Classically educated poet and former gardener Alice Oswald has won many awards and is commonly considered to be amongst the greatest poets writing in English today.    

Producer: Beaty Rubens

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Five leading contemporary poets celebrate John Keats's stunningly fertile year - 1819.

John Keats's stunningly fertile year - 1819 - celebrated by five leading contemporary poets.

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