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"Ode on Melancholy" is one of five odes composed by English poet John Keats in the spring of 1819, along with "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on Indolence", and "Ode to Psyche". The narrative of the poem describes the poet’s perception of melancholy through a lyric discourse between the poet and the reader, along with the introduction to Ancient Grecian characters and ideals. == Background == While studying at Enfield, Keats attempted to gain a knowledge of Grecian art from translations of Tooke’s ''Pantheon'', Lempriere's ''Classical Dictionary'' and Spence's ''Polymetis''. Although Keats attempted to learn Ancient Greek, the majority of his understanding of Grecian mythology came from the translations into English.〔 Bate, Walter Jackson. ''John Keats''. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963. pp. 25-26 〕 "Ode on Melancholy" contains references to classical themes, characters, and places such as Psyche, Lethe, and Prosperine in its description of melancholy, as allusions to Grecian art and literature were common among the “five great odes”.〔 John B. Gleason. ''A Greek Eco in Ode on a Grecian Urn.'' (RES New Series Vol. XLII, No. 165). Oxford University Press (1991)〕 Unlike the speaker of "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode to a Nightingale", and "Ode to Psyche", the speaker of "Ode on Melancholy" speaks directly to the reader rather than to an object or an emotion.〔 Bennett, Andrew. '' Keats, Narrative and Audience''. Cambridge University Press (1994). p. 133〕 With only three stanzas, the poem is the shortest of the odes Keats wrote in 1819; however, the original first stanza of the poem was removed before the poem’s publication in 1820.〔Gaillard. Theodore L., Jr. “Keats’s Ode on Melancholy." The Explicator. Sept 22, 1994.〕 It ran as follows: :Though you should build a bark of dead men's bones, :And rear a phantom gibbet for a mast, :Stitch creeds together for a sail, with groans :To fill it out, bloodstained and aghast; :Although your rudder be a Dragon's tail, :Long sever'd, yet still hard with agony, :Your cordage large uprootings from the skull :Of bald Medusa; certes you would fail :To find the Melancholy, whether she :Dreameth in any isle of Lethe dull.〔Bloom p. 413〕 According to Harold Bloom, one can presume that the “harmony was threatened if fully half of (poem ) was concerned with the useless quest after “The Melancholy”.〔 Bloom, Harold. ''The Visionary Company: A Reading of English Romantic Poetry''Cornell University Press (1971). p. 413〕 Despite its adjusted length, Keats thought the poem to be of a higher quality than "Ode on Indolence", which was not published until 1848, after Keats’s death.〔Vendler, Helen. ''The Odes of John Keats''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (1983). pp. 20,66〕 == Structure == "Ode on Melancholy" consists of three stanzas with ten lines each. Because the poem has fewer stanzas than "Ode on Indolence" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn", the rhyme scheme appears less elaborate, with the first and second stanzas sharing a rhyme scheme of: ABABCDECDE, while the third takes on one of its own: ABABCDEDCE. As with "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode on Indolence", and "To Autumn", each stanza begins with an ABAB rhyme scheme then finishes with a Miltonic sestet.〔Gittings, Robert. ''John Keats''. London: Heinemann, 1968. p. 300〕 The general meter of the poem is iambic pentameter. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ode on Melancholy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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