On the Grasshopper and Cricket Essay

In the first half of the poem ‘On the Grasshopper and Cricket’ Keats talks about the opulence of the summer season and deals with summer imagery and the grasshopper, similarly the second half is about the dullness of the winter season and deals with the cricket. â€Å" How does Keats explore Romantic Ideals in his poem On the Grasshopper and Cricket†? The poem is structurally similar to a sonnet because it has 14 lines, it can be divided into an octet and sestet and it is written in iambic pentameter. The poem has a definite rhyme scheme of abbabba cdecde. This use of form brings out the cyclic, eternal and perpetual life of nature. The use of imagery is unmistakably showing us the reverence for the natural world. Imagery is shown in the Octet summer afternoon as the hot sun, cooling trees, hedge and New-mown mead meaning meadow. In the Sestet winter evening its shown as lone winter evening, frost, stove and silence. This creates contrast from the pleasant and active mood, and lively environment created by the words ‘delights’ and ‘fun’ to the dismal and melancholy mood, and slow and peaceful environment created by ‘silence’ and ‘drowsiness’. ‘The poetry of earth is never dead’, this is the opening line of the poem. Reflecting the poet’s belief that the beauty of nature never ends and that the beauty of nature is an art form and it will never cease to exist. The Grasshopper portrays the enjoyment of summer that everyone partakes during this season. This is shown in line 7. ‘He has never done with his delights’. The assonance of the extended vowel sounds in ‘the new-mown mead’ reflects the environment of summer; this is contrasted with the harsh vowel sounds of ‘wrought a silence’ in winter, which shows how harsh winter is. Even though there is contrast between the summer and winter seasons, they are two separate beauties-summer being gentle and relaxing beauty, whereas winter is harsh and cold, yet still enchanting. Keats has explored Romantic Ideals in his poem through reverence for the natural world. The delineation was created through the use of contrast, assonance, imagery and rhyme. Using two characters such as the Grasshopper and the Cricket to visually impact the audience with thec impact nature has on us. The earth is beautiful and always will be.