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"To Autumn" is a poem by English Romantic poet John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821). The work was composed on 19 September 1819 and published in 1820 in a volume of Keats's poetry that included ''Lamia'' and ''The Eve of St. Agnes''. "To Autumn" is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats's "1819 odes". Although personal problems left him little time to devote to poetry in 1819, he composed "To Autumn" after a walk near Winchester one autumnal evening. The work marks the end of his poetic career, as he needed to earn money and could no longer devote himself to the lifestyle of a poet. A little over a year following the publication of "To Autumn", Keats died in Rome. The poem has three eleven-line stanzas which describe a progression through the season, from the late maturation of the crops to the harvest and to the last days of autumn when winter is nearing. The imagery is richly achieved through the personification of Autumn, and the description of its bounty, its sights and sounds. It has parallels in the work of English landscape artists,〔Bewell 1999 p. 176〕 with Keats himself describing the fields of stubble that he saw on his walk as being like that in a painting.〔Bate 1963 p. 580〕 The work has been interpreted as a meditation on death; as an allegory of artistic creation; as Keats's response to the Peterloo Massacre, which took place in the same year; and as an expression of nationalist sentiment. One of the most anthologised English lyric poems, "To Autumn" has been regarded by critics as one of the most perfect short poems in the English language. ==Background== During the spring of 1819, Keats wrote many of his major odes: "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode on Indolence", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale", and "Ode to Psyche". After the month of May, he began to pursue other forms of poetry, including the verse tragedy ''Otho the Great'' in collaboration with friend and roommate Charles Brown, the second half of ''Lamia'', and a return to his unfinished epic ''Hyperion''.〔Bate 1963 pp. 526–562〕 His efforts from spring until autumn were dedicated completely to a career in poetry, alternating between writing long and short poems, and setting himself a goal to compose more than fifty lines of verse each day. In his free time he also read works as varied as Robert Burton's ''Anatomy of Melancholy'', Thomas Chatterton's poetry, and Leigh Hunt's essays.〔Gittings 1968 pp. 269–270〕 Although Keats managed to write many poems in 1819, he was suffering from a multitude of financial troubles throughout the year, including concerns over his brother, George, who, after emigrating to America, was badly in need of money. Despite these distractions, on 19 September 1819 he found time to write "To Autumn". The poem marks the final moment of his career as a poet. No longer able to afford to devote his time to the composition of poems, he began working on more lucrative projects.〔 Keats's declining health and personal responsibilities also raised obstacles to his continuing poetic efforts.〔Motion 1999 p. 461〕 On 19 September 1819, Keats walked near Winchester along the River Itchen. In a letter to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds written on 21 September, Keats described the impression the scene had made upon him and its influence on the composition of "To Autumn":〔 "How beautiful the season is now – How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it () I never lik'd stubble fields so much as now () Somehow a stubble plain looks warm – in the same way that some pictures look warm – this struck me so much in my sunday's walk that I composed upon it."〔Keats 2008 p. 184〕 Not everything on Keats's mind at the time was bright; the poet knew in September that he would have to finally abandon ''Hyperion''. Thus, in the letter that he wrote to Reynolds, Keats also included a note saying that he abandoned his long poem.〔Bate 1963 p. 585〕 Keats did not send "To Autumn" to Reynolds, but did include the poem within a letter to Richard Woodhouse, Keats's publisher and friend, and dated it on the same day.〔Evert 1965 pp. 296–297〕 The poem was revised and included in Keats's 1820 collection of poetry titled ''Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems''. Although the publishers Taylor and Hessey feared the kind of bad reviews that had plagued Keats's 1818 edition of ''Endymion'', they were willing to publish the collection after the removal of any potentially controversial poems to ensure that there would be no politically motivated reviews that could give the volume a bad reputation.〔McGann 1979 pp. 988–989〕 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「To Autumn」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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