Falling in Love with Fall - Beauty in John Keats' To Autumn

“Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love, there is Beauty.” Emerson

If you look hard enough, beauty exists all around us. Emerson claimed that beauty exists all around us. As an American Transcendentalist, he believed that through free will, any person could journey to a spiritual beyond inside themselves to find meaning. In other words, beauty. Even so, I don't think that journey was meant to be an easy one. I think that a lot of us are born into this world thinking they are born without beauty by default. We spend years and our entire lives looking for and attaining beauty, forgetting that is, in fact, everywhere.

I find it hard to define the word 'beauty'. If you really think about it, anything can be beautiful and has the potential to be beautiful. Growing up, the world had convinced me that 'beautiful' was never a word I would associate with myself. As a result, I blinded myself to the beauty of the world. I read somewhere that our appearance is the amalgamation of a million people who fell in love with each other. That statement has shaped my current definition of beauty.

I think that beauty is the perception of all things, painted in a pretty light. Sure, you may be in a rough spot now but it'll be a wonderful story to tell your friends one day. Taking a page out of Emerson's book, danger is an impending doom but it's exciting. The sunset may mean that the day is ending soon but the orange hues and yellow shadows never fail to make me stop in my tracks and smile. When you see something not as it is, but as beautiful as it could be, the world will blossom into something new. I don't think there's anything more beautiful than that. Get your heart broken, make mistakes, crash and burn and watch the sparks like it's a firework show. The world is beautiful. You are beautiful. because, well, everything is.

I think that Emerson's quotes perfectly describes the subtle beauty of John Keats' 'To Autumn'. In his love letter to the season known for dried leaves and Halloween, he points out elements of nature that we so often forget to appreciate.

#1: Describing Beauty

Keats uses a lot of imagery in this poem. He illustrates the perfect autumn day. Even as someone who has never experienced autumn, he experienced me to a place I go to whenever I listen to Taylor Swift's All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) (Taylor's Version). Sitting, on a bench, I'm watching this world of orange, dried leaves on the ground and the subtle sound of birds chirping while they migrate to some place new.

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Lines like these, paint a vivid image of gourd and hazel shells. Keats uses visual imagery to help readers paint an image in their mind.

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

To accompany these visual imagery, Keats uses auditory imagery to make the poem seem even more realistic and alive. It truly as if you are there with him, watching the world spin by while autumn leaves fall.

  Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Keats poetic prowess is truly shown in his use of tone, rhyme and rhythm. The poem itself, is song-like. It forces readers to read the poem slowly, savoring the words and lines, making the visuals all the more beautiful.

#2: Literary Techniques

Keats uses many literary techniques to further illustrate how beautiful the autumn landscape is.

Simile

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Rhetorical question

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Personification

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

Rhyme

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

Onomatopoeia

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

All in all, Keats is calling out to his readers to enjoy the season for what it is. Why wait for spring's song when autumn's choir is just as beautiful if not more?

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.

Edgar Allan Poe

What is beauty to you? What are your thoughts on the poem?

Read the poem here.

Leave a comment and tell me what you think！