Comparing 'Ode on Grecian Urn', by Keats and ' Sailing to Byzantium' by Yates

Essay by Alan FeltsUniversity, Bachelor's January 1996

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When you go to bed you see that it is dark outside, but when you wake you see light. The light and dark of the day is very dissent, but they are very closely related. Dark and light are the fares things from each other, while you can't have light without dark meeting. In the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' and 'Sailing to Byzantium' we see these differences.

The difference in the 'Ode on Grecian Urn' and ' Sailing to Byzantium' are very distinctive especially in the themes of art verses nature in the battle between immortality. 'Sailing to Byzantium' has themes such as art verses nature while 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' relies mainly on the battle of immortality in life. This can also be said about 'Sailing to Byzantium.'

We will start with 'Sailing to Byzantium to show the strive for immortality.

This theme of immortality as I go thoughtout this poem: 'That is no country for old men. The young in one other arms, bids in the tree. Those dying generations of their song.' (1,2,3) Imortality hit you in the face start off these lines. It talks about old becoming young and birds and trees. This makes you think of spring and vegetation and animals and life. Yates uses vivified examples such as 'An Aged Man is but a patty thing, a tattered coat upon a stick.' (9,10) Yates is describing a scarecrow or what you might call death. He also talks about a maniacal bird in lines thirty and thirty-one. This is something that isn't dying and will go on forever. These two images life and death help insure the complexity of these poems.

The images of life and death is also repesented in...