Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 10, 2010

"To Autumn" is a poem written by English Romantic poet John Keats. The work was composed on 19 September 1819 and published in a volume of Keats's poetry that included Lamia and The Eve of Saint Agnes in 1820. "To Autumn" is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats's "1819 odes". Although he had little time throughout 1819 to devote to poetry because of personal problems, he managed to compose "To Autumn" after he was inspired to write the poem following 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 stanzas, each of eleven lines, that describe the tastes, sights, and sounds of autumn. Much of the third stanza, however, is dedicated to diction, symbolism, and literary devices with negative connotations, as it describes the end of the day and the end of autumn. "To Autumn" includes an emphasis on images of motion, growth, and maturation. The work can be interpreted as a discussion of death, an expression of colonialist sentiment, or as a political response to the Peterloo Massacre. "To Autumn" has been regarded by critics as one of the most perfect short poems in English literature, and it is one of the most anthologized English lyric poems. (more...)

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