Talk:Ode on Indolence

	Background Of The Ode:

	This ode was written in spring of 1819 (between mid-March and early June) during his most productive years, being one in his great sequence of odes. 	Tom Keats died in December 1818, just before it was written, following John’s move to Hampstead. 	In 1819, agitation for social reform grew. The government's response to the agitation was repression, and in 1819 at Peterloo, near Manchester, protests were answered by armed force, resulting in several dead and hundreds injured. 	In the letter to George and Georgiana (written on 19th March, 1819), Keats described his indolence: 'This is the only happiness; and is a rare instance of advantage in the body overpowering the Mind.' 	On 9th June, he told Miss Jeffrey that 'the thing I have most enjoyed this year has been writing an ode to Indolence'. 	The ode was first published in 1848.

Reworking the Article
I have recently begun to change a few things about this article since so much of the information used in the ode on a grecian urn page was relevent here. I hope I have not angered anyone by not asking permission. If anyone would like to help with, change, or moan about anything I have done so far, pleaes feel free. I know that I have only touched the surface, but I plan to work on each of the 5 odes as I get time. I would like to see Thanks, Mrathel (talk) 21:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * a lot more sources on the information I have already provided
 * an analysis of the text
 * deeper analysis of the structure and background
 * moreCritical analysis of the poem
 * and whatever else you feel like adding.
 * FYI, I am going to be spending tomorrow in the library looking for more sources to use for the Poem section of the article. Does anyone have anything they would like for me to look for while I am there? I can take requests on just about any subject, even if not related to KeatsMrathel (talk) 16:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

thoughts
Not sure how I am supposed to do this, but I have a few questions about the issues that I would like to discuss before making the proper changes, as I think more experienced editors might understand better than I:
 * 3.4The "vase" appears in the text in line 10 below the text which attempts to provide a summary of that stanza. I am not sure if there is really enough contextual evidence to assert that the vase appears in a physical sense in the stanza, so I am not sure that I can say where it comes from, but I may just be a bit rusty on the poem.
 * 3.5 I do shy away from using "the poet" and "Keats" interchangably in an attempt to keep from confusing author and narrator. Perhaps we can add "speaker" instead, but I hate the way it implies speech for written text. I am not sure if confusing Keats and the poet is problem in this particular case, so an outside look might be better since I probably wrote this:)
 * 4.3 I understand the need to keep the article on subject, but I personally find it tough to discuss one without mentioning the overlapping themes shared by works also arising from the same inspiration. Will leave that to people who know better.
 * 4.6 Is it necessary to discuss more clearly the connection between the Greek characters in the poem and Keats' study of Greek mythology at the time of its composition? Perhaps there is a way to connect this section with the critical analysis of the poem in the previous section to explain why it is a theme. Mrathel (talk) 10:14, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I was meaning to talk to you about some of the above. I would prefer narrator instead of poet or speaker. Anyway, we will talk. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 15:18, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

F&f's critique of Section 2, paragraph 1

 * (Sentence 1) "''The ode begins with an epigraph from Matthew 6:28: 'They toil not, neither do they spin.'"
 * The sentence is ambiguous: does it mean that the beginning of the ode is an epigraph in Matthew 6:28 or that the ode's epigraph is taken from Matthew 6:28? "Epigraph," in any case, as its own page informs us, is a quote preceding the text; it is therefore redundant when you use "begins." Please say, "The ode begins with a quote from Matthew 6:28" or "The ode has as (its) epigraph a quote from Matthew 6:28"


 * (Sentence 2) "The following text consists of six stanzas of ten lines each, exhibiting a complex rhyme scheme common to many Romantic odes."
 * Do you mean, "the text that follows," or "the ensuing text," or "the subsequent text," or "the text proper?" "The following text" is ambiguous, since it can mean the text that is to follow (say, as an example in the article itself).
 * The participial phrase, "exhibiting a complex rhyme scheme ..." is vague; it needs clearly to refer back to a subject. Either bring it forward at the head of the sentence, if you are applying it to the text, or say, "... stanzas of ten lines each, all exhibiting ..." if you are applying it to the stanzas.  Or you could do away with the participial phrase altogether and employ an adjective clause, "The text proper, which consists of six stanzas of ten lines each, exhibits a complex rhyme scheme ..."


 * (Sentence 3) "Keats’s style of using iambic pentameter and an ABAB rhyme scheme for the first four lines of each stanza shows an adherence to Classical poem structure."
 * The prepositions and articles are missing or incorrect. You mean "Keats's use of both the iambic pentameter and the ABAB rhyme scheme in the first four lines of each stanza shows an adherence to a/the Classical poem structure." ("Classical," moreover, especially when you capitalize it, needs to be linked to something.)


 * (Sentence 4) "''However, the ode breaks from the classical formation with a series of asymmetrical 6-line endings to each stanza referred to by Gittings as a "Miltonic-based sestet". This is an extremely shabby sentence!
 * What is a "classical formation?" Do you mean "classical form?"  "Classical formation" means something else.  Or perhaps you mean, "classical tradition," especially when you are using "breaks from?"
 * "a series of" is redundant when you say "each stanza."
 * What is the point of "referred to by Gittings as a 'Miltonic-based sestet'" Is it really that informative? Wouldn't it be better if you simply laid out the forms of the asymmetrical lines? This seems to be: ABC,ABC in the first two stanzas and in stanzas 4 and 5; ABC,CAB in stanza three, and ABC, ACB in stanza 6. Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  19:19, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Minor citation issues
I marked two problems in the source with "??" comments: Eubulides (talk) 00:03, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * `Douglas Bush insists it was written after "Nightingale", "Grecian Urn", and "Melancholy". ` Surely that citation should be to Bush, not to Bate.
 * Two works are listed in References but are never cited. Shouldn't they be removed? They are Wu 1995 and Yoon 1998.
 * They were previous cited but apparently removed. I'll make fixes shortly. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:17, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I remember that. But thanks for the update. 202.180.111.63 (talk) 12:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC)