Ode to Autumn Questions Answers Summary

Ode to Autumn Questions Answers Summary 

In this article we will learn and get the line by line explanation and questions answers summary of Ode to Autumn by John Keats who was one of the chief romantics. Ode to Autumn is basically belongs to the nature poem where the season Autumn has been personified with vivid sensuousness, the quality which Keats utilised excellently in Ode to Autumn.

Ode To Autumn Questions Answers Summary 

Ode to Autumn Summary 

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Ode to Autumn Poem Text:

         Ode to Autumn 
           John Keats 

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;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;


To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store ?


Sometimes who ever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, 

Drows’d with the fume of poppies while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:


And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Springs? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,


While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;


Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Ode to Autumn Questions Answers:

1) Describe the beauty of autumn as described in Ode to Autumn. 

Ans: To describe the beauty of Autumn in his poem, Ode to Autumn, John Keats chooses mainly the first stanza and particularly the second stanza in Ode to Autumn. The first stanza is packed with maturity of the fruits that is revealed by their juicy succulents. There is all ripeness and tumescence. The vines are overloaded with graves, the apple trees are bent with apples, the gourd and the hazelnuts are plumped with their sweet kernet. The flowers are in full bloom and are buzzed on by the honey-monger bees. The second stanza reeks of fullness by the loaded store house of grain and the winnower’s dreamy reluctance to winnow.

2) Who is the close bosom friend of maturing sun?

Ans: In John Keats’ Ode to Autumn, Autumn is the season of ripeness and fruitfulness is the close bosom friend of the maturing sun. Autumn is called the close bosom friend of the maturing sun in the sense that Autumn is conspiring with the warm-sunlight causes the ripeness and maturity of the fruits.

3) Explain the phrase ‘maturing sun’.

Ans: The expression “maturing sun” from Keats’ Ode to Autumn as two meanings. Firstly, the sun is maturing in the sense that it helps to make the fruits mature. But the another meaning that can be understood only after the reading of the whole poem is that the sun is going to be matured that warns us of the inevitable destruction of everything that Keats is fully aware of.

4) Does the mention of bees signify something in the poem Ode to Autumn?

Ans: The minute evaluation of the first stanza of Keats’ Ode to Autumn reveals that it consists of the ripeness and maturity of all fruits. Though it is a static maturity, it hints at the intention to linger in this state of maturity as long as possible. But the mention of bees buzzing on the flowers reminds us of the inevitable flux of life going to inevitable extinction which perhaps the poet seeks to establish. 

5) Describe the personification employed by Keats in Ode to Autumn. 

Ans: In Keats’ Ode to Autumn, Autumn had been personified as a winnower, a reaper, a cleaner and a cider-presser. We see that the winnower is careless, the reaper is drowsy, the cleaner is burdened and the cider-presser is patient. All these activities testify to Autumn’s reluctance to be finished in fear of being the inevitable subject to death.

6) Describe the mournful sounds of Autumn mentioned in Ode to Autumn. 

Ans: Keats concludes his Ode to Autumn with a series of mournful melancholy melody produced by gnats, lambs, crickets and Robin red breast. This melancholy reminds us of the retrospective gloom. The wailful choir of gnats, the bleating of the lambs and the chirping of the hedge-crickets and the whistle of the Robin red breasts warn that the inevitable death of Autumn knocking at the door.

7) Does the mention of the songs of spring evoke Keats’ dissatisfaction to be in Autumn?

Ans: Being amidst the bounty of Autumn, Keats’ mention in Ode to Autumn of the songs of spring sounds like sound of dissatisfaction to be in Autumn. But this misinterpretation is seen nullified by his appreciation of Autumn’s mournful music and from this we can safely say that it is not the dissatisfaction of the poet but a nostalgia that recalls but does not weep.

8) Does the mention of the mournful sounds in the last stanza signify something to you?

Ans: The mournful sounds produced by the gnats, the lambs, the hedge-crickets and Robin red breasts sound as a tragic foreboding of life that everything in the world, even the prodigal bounty of Autumn is subject to death. The poem ends with a peculiar sense acceptance of tragic inevitability of life.

9) Describe Keats’ sensuousness in the poem Ode to Autumn. 

Ans: John Keats’ Ode to Autumn teeming with his characteristics sensuousness that is reflected through three types of images – tactile, visual and auditory. The first stanza gives us a peculiar thrill of touch that we can feel through the different shapes of different fruits. Our vision is nurtured to different selves of the personified Autumn – the winnower, the reaper, the cleaner and cider-presser. Our ears are soothed by different mournful melodies produced by the gnats, the lambs, the hedge-crickets and Robin red breast and the swallow.

10) Describe Ode to Autumn as an ode.

Ans: Keats’ Ode to Autumn is an ode in the sense that it is serious n theme, dignified in style and elaborate in its stanzaic structure. The theme of the poem is the typically Keatscian i.e the inevitable surrender to inevitability and the serene acceptance of the reality. This theme is presented in a dignified manner through the personification of the season Autumn. To do this Keats spent three stanzas of eleven lines each. Three qualities of this poem testify to its being an ode and more distinctly it is a Horacian Ode.

11) What is Hellenism? Describe Keats’ Hellenism with reference to Ode to Autumn. 

Ans: Hellenism refers to go back to references from Greek literature of art. John Keats is essentially a Greek and we find the traces of Hellenism in his Ode to Autumn. Ode to Autumn reveals Keats’ Hellenism, his power of visualising, like the ancient Greeks, natural objects in concrete human forms. Here Autumn appears as embodied as a harvester. Keats must have thought of Greek goddess of corn while he personifies Autumn as a woman sitting carelessly on the granary floor with her lifted by gentle wind. There is also reference of Greek choir in the mourning of gnats.

12) Comment on the John Keats as a romantic poet in Ode to Autumn. 

Ans: John Keats in Ode to Autumn is a romantic poet par excellence. His imaginative faculty makes him a pictorial artist. His sensuousness and attitude towards nature is essentially romantic. Autumn through his imagination is personified in concrete human forms. Like in other romantic poems there is also a note of melancholy as found in the line ‘gathering swallows Twitter in the skies’. Keats like other romantic poets also takes references from Greek literature and art.

13. How does Keats describe the sights and sounds of Nature in Ode to Autumn?

Ans: In Ode to Autumn, the poet Keats has shown his sublime qualities of using images to paint the picture of Autumn. Picture of the ripened fruits and flowers are drawn in the first stanza. In the second stanza, the spirit of Autumn is embodied in the various harvesting operations of the season. Description of the music of the Autumn composed of the soft music of the gnats and swallows and rough music of the lambs and crickets are described in the third stanza. Thus, the first stanza describes the colour, the second stanza is about movement and the third stanza is about the music of Autumn.

14. What are the four roles that the poet identifies with Autumn?

Ans: As a harvester, Autumn is seen sitting carelessly on the field when the wind that seperates the gain from the chaff dishevells her hair. As a reapear, she has fallen asleep due to the scent of poppies over the corn that she is reaping. She has bent over the next row of corn yet to be cut. As a gleaner, she is crossing the river maintaining carefully the balance of the load placed on her head. As a ciderpresser, she is seen sitting by a press. While the apples are squeezed, she watches the apple juice coming out of it drop for hours together.

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