1No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
2 Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
3Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
4 By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
5 Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
6 Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
7 Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
8A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
9 For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
10 And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
11But when the melancholy fit shall fall
12 Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
13That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
14 And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
15Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
16 Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
17 Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
18Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
19 Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
20 And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
21She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
22 And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
23Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
24 Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
25Ay, in the very temple of Delight
26 Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
27 Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
28 Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
29His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
30 And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
"Ode on Melancholy" was written by the British Romantic poet John Keats. It is one of the five odes Keats composed in 1819, which are considered to be among his best work. Essentially the poem is about how to deal—and how not to deal—with deep sadness. The speaker comes across as a kind of advisor who warns against turning to intoxication or death for relief from melancholy. Instead, the speaker agues that melancholy should be embraced. The poem also establishes a link between the good things in life and melancholy. Because anything good is doomed to end, the poem suggests that all beauty is suffused with a kind of poignant sadness.
Even if you're really sad, absolutely do not drink from the waters of the Lethe river, which would make you lose your memory, and don't pull wolf's-bane plants from the ground in order to poison yourself or dull your pain. Don't let your weak self come into contact with a deadly nightshade plant, or drink wine from the mythical Queen of the Underworld. Don't make a rosary bead necklace from poisonous yew-berries, and don't become obsessed with symbols of death and decay like beetles or death-moths. And don't join forces with the owl in order to intensify your mysterious sadness. Doing any of the above will bring too much darkness, and just numb you to your pain.
When a melancholy mood strikes you—like a sudden thunderstorm that makes the sky weep, pounds down on the flowers, and covers all the greenery with an April fog—then feed your pain by gazing upon a rose that blooms only in the morning, or the rainbows over the sea, or bounteous peony flowers. Or if your lover is really angry, just hold her soft hand and let her express that anger while you gaze deeply into her beautiful eyes.
Melancholy is inseparable from beauty, because beauty doesn't last forever. And melancholy is also a part of Joy, who is always holding his hand up to his mouth, ready to wish people good bye. It exists within Pleasure, which is already turning to poison even as the bee sips its nectar. Indeed, melancholy is contained within all of life's good things, like a queen dwelling, partially hidden, within a temple. She can only be seen by those who fully embrace joy and beauty—who pop the metaphorical fruit of joy into their discerning mouths. The person who does so will taste Melancholy's sad power, and his soul will be kept by her as a symbol of her inevitable victory.
John Keats’s “Ode on Melancholy” is a rich and complex poem that offers a way of responding to deep despair. Put simply, it encourages people to embrace sadness, not by seeking to end or soften it, but by living within it—that is, by actively acknowledging its presence. People ought to embrace “melancholy” because, even though it brings “sorrow,” it's also a fundamental part of beauty, joy, and pleasure. Furthermore, the poem argues, the highest forms of beauty are actually made beautiful by the fact that they cannot last—and it’s for this reason, the poem suggests, that melancholy, beauty, and time are so deeply intertwined.
The poem is almost like an early precursor to self-help literature, suggesting what to do and not to do when someone is feeling really down. To that end, the first stanza acts as a kind of warning, outlining different ways that people might respond to melancholy. These include self-poisoning and drinking from the ancient river of Lethe (which causes the drinker to forget whatever is troubling them). If people try to numb or end their "anguish," the poem argues, they won't make the most of their melancholy—they won’t be able to see its close relationship with beauty at first hand. Instead, they just will be overwhelmed by their sadness.
The second stanza then tells people what they should do when a melancholy mood strikes. Essentially, this boils down to embracing melancholy by seeking out beauty in the natural world. People should "glut"—that is, feed—their sorrows by looking at a "morning rose," a rainbow that appears over the sea, or a peony. Importantly, all of these things are temporary; a morning rose blooms in the morning, a rainbow fades, and globular peonies quickly brown and wilt. In fact, part of their beauty seems to come from the fact that their existence is fleeting. As such, the speaker argues that people should embrace their melancholy by bearing witness to the most melancholic fact of all: that the greatest beauty in the world is by its very nature temporary, and that’s why beauty contains and even intensifies melancholy.
In the poem, beauty and melancholy are thus linked by their impermanence. “Beauty […] must die,” just as “Joy” is always bidding the joyful person “adieu” (goodbye). And though people can experience pleasure, it’s always metaphorically in the process of “turning to poison”—because time will eventually bring about its end. Inherent to beauty, the poem thus argues, is a sense of poignant sadness given the knowledge that beauty will one day be gone.
For that reason, then, “Melancholy” is like a kind of goddess who rules over the “temple of Delight.” Zooming out on this idea, the poem is essentially saying that nothing good can last forever. This in turn makes anything good in life full of sadness before it’s even over—but the best response to this sad fact, agues the poem, is simply to embrace it. Indeed, that’s why the poem's ending praises those people who “can burst Joy’s grape against [their] palate fine.” Someone like that accepts that beauty and melancholy “dwell” together, and “bursts” this metaphorical grape—a stand-in for all the good things in life—in full knowledge that doing so will eventually bring about a time when “Joy” will be gone. This is actually a pretty practical response in a world not built to last, and with a life that has death as its only real certainty.
Ultimately, then, “Ode on Melancholy” uncovers an intimate connection between melancholy, beauty, and the passing of time. If beautiful things could last forever, the poem seems to say, then they wouldn’t be suffused with such sadness. But, of course, nothing can last—and thereby the more beautiful something is (and beauty can stand for joy, pleasure, and general happiness) the more that melancholy “dwells” within it.
One way to interpret “Ode on Melancholy” is as a warning against a certain kind of self-destructive intoxication. Though it’s not overtly laid out as such, the poem implicitly argues that the natural world has more to offer people—even if they are melancholy—than does the world of drugs and alcohol. Indeed, it was around the time of this poem’s composition that Keats wrote in a letter that he hoped to maintain “a peaceable and healthy spirit”—and perhaps this is at the root of the poem’s apparent preference for the natural world over intoxication.
The first stanza reads like a list of self-destructive behaviors, all of which are ways that the poem presents as possible (but ill-advised) responses to melancholy, or a pervasive sense of deep sadness. These are presented in rich imagery with multiple classical allusions, but strip those away and essentially the stanza is talking about alcohol and drugs. The poem mentions “poisonous wine,” the deadly nightshade plant, and the tempting grapes of a goddess. But rather than combating sadness, the poem argues, alcohol and drugs accelerate it to a point of no return, “drown[ing]” people’s “soul[s].”
The beauty of the language in this stanza seems to speak to the temptation of such substances, and how people can be seduced by the promised comfort of intoxication. In other words, it’s understandable that people react to melancholy through a kind of harmful self-medication—but that’s not the way the speaker thinks they should respond.
The second stanza then offers the speaker’s alternative to intoxication: appreciation of the natural world. The stanza is full of natural imagery, and instructs anyone feeling down to seek out roses, peony flowers, and rainbows. Together, these seem to offer an alternative to the list of intoxicants offered in the first stanza.
That’s not to say that the natural world can cure people’s sadness. The speaker ultimately feels that melancholy is simply a part of life—and that it dwells in the natural world too. With that in mind, though, the speaker does seem to think that avoiding the temptations of intoxicants is ultimately a better way to experience the beauty, joy, pleasure and delight of the world—even if these are all also filled with melancholy.
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
The poem opens by giving its addressee various instructions about things not to do. And, right of the bat, the speaker is emphatic—repeating "no" twice (technically something called epizeuxis) followed by "go not," just in case the listener isn't sure how serious the speaker takes this!
It's worth noting early on that the addressee of the poem is never made clear. The poem originally had another stanza at the start, which focused on a hero-figure questing to find the goddess Melancholy—this may explain the starting point for this instructive tone. But, of course, that stanza was deleted, so the poem could be interpreted as addressed to some unknown recipient, to the reader, to anyone who has ever experienced melancholy—or to some combination of all of these.
The poem's first instruction, then, is that this melancholic person should not go "to Lethe." This is an allusion to a river in the mythological Greek underworld. According to myth, drinking from this river will cause someone to forget everything and enter a kind of state of oblivion. The speaker, then, is cautioning against reckless, self-destructive oblivion. Though the point is not made till later in the stanza, this is because the speaker views the melancholic state—the "wakeful anguish of the soul"—as something to be embraced, rather than drunk or drugged away.
The next warnings are against "wolfsbane," "nightshade," and the "ruby grape of Proserpine." The first of these is a poisonous flower, also known as monkshood. The caesuras surrounding the clause "tight-rooted" in line 2 conveys the way the plant is tightly embedded in the ground, meaning anyone who wants to take it out needs to be pretty desperate and determined. The consonance of /t/ sounds in the phrase also sound tight and compressed.
Nightshade is another deadly plant (also know as atropa belladonna), while the "ruby grape of Proserpine" is another classical allusion. Proserpine, or Proserpina, is the Roman myth equivalent of the Greek Persephone. Long story short, Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and a goddess named Demeter. Hades, ruler of the underworld, kidnaps Persephone and makes her his queen. Her return to earth each year marks springtime; she is associated with both death and vegetation.
What's important here is that all of the above can be grouped together as intoxicants, and they also hint at the act of suicide. They are, then, part of the speaker's way of building an argument not quite in favor of—but against the rejection of—the melancholic state. That is, the speaker is telling the listener not to actively try to dull the pain of melancholy.
"Yew-berries," mentioned in line 5, are also highly toxic. To make a rosary of them would be to somehow construct a personal religion or way of life around intoxication, as though they are an object to aid prayer. Of course, the speaker rejects this idea too.
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
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Get LitCharts A+But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
In "Ode on Melancholy," poisons and intoxicants—things like alcohol and drugs—symbolize an attempt to escape melancholy by dulling the mind and giving up on life. The first five lines of the poem present different substances that melancholic people might be drawn towards. These intoxicants are: the waters of Lethe (a mythical Greek river which causes the drinker to forget), wolf's-bane (poisonous), nightshade (also poisonous), Proserpine's wine (the wine of the underworld), and yew-berries (again poisonous). Though ingesting these, the poem argues, melancholic people think they might find some relief from their despair.
But these substances, for the speaker, represent the wrong way to respond to melancholy, because they bring "shade to shade" (line 9)—they make life darker. Instead, paradoxically, the melancholic individual should aim to see melancholy more clearly. All of these intoxicants are tempting, and the poem uses beautifully constructed phrases to signal their allure. Ultimately, though, the speaker cautions against them all strongly. Of course, the speaker isn't warning against these things specifically, but against the general principle of responding to melancholy through intoxication or suicide. Instead, the speaker wants to remain in "wakeful anguish."
In lines 6-8, the speaker implores the reader not to partner up with beetles, death-moths, or downy owls. These animals symbolize death, or an unhelpful preoccupation with death. Each of these creatures has close ties with death, and accordingly the speaker is attempting to say that death is not a good response to melancholy (though it might be tempting).
The beetle most likely relates to ancient Egyptian mythology. A type of beetle called a scarab was a popular symbol in ancient Egypt, particularly in the form of amulets. European poets often associated ancient Egypt with death and the afterlife, due to the Egyptian practice of mummification and related beliefs about the afterlife. So, the beetle here can be interpreted as symbolizing death, particularly with mythological overtones.
The death-moth is probably based on the death's-head hawkmoth, a large moth which has a skull-like figure on its back. Similarly, the owl is associated with the nocturnal and supernatural world. Taken all together, these animals become somewhat supernatural symbols of death. The speaker warns not to let these animals become one's "Psyche"—not to let a desire for death to define one's inner self.
In the second stanza, nature symbolizes the connection between beauty and melancholy. Though the first stanza does discuss nature, it specifically focuses on intoxicants and death. The second stanza presents nature in a different way, looking at how it can help people who are very sad. Indeed, this stanza sees nature as somewhat representative of melancholy itself, in the sense that nature's beauty is inseparable from a cycle of life and death.
In other words, the beauty of nature is impermanent—it doesn't last forever, which imbues it with a sense of melancholy; at the same time, though, this impermanence is part of what makes nature so lovely in the first place, part of what encourages people's appreciation of it.
Note how rain nourishes flowers in the way that melancholy nourishes beauty. The nourishing rain cloud is described as "weeping." Tears, after all, can be a response both to sadness and to something beautiful. In this way, "weeping" and beauty can help make sense of melancholy (or, at least, make it feel less painful). Roses, rainbows, and peonies are all presented as natural beauties that can aid the melancholic individual in embracing—and making the most of—their mood. Flowers wilt, rainbows fade; built into their beauty is a sense of sadness at their inevitable departure. In a sense, then, nature is a reminder that without melancholy, beauty would not exist.
“Ode on Melancholy,” as with Keats’s other odes, is a poem rich in sound and texture. There are a number of examples of alliteration throughout. The first example is in the opening line:
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
The repeated /n/ sounds emphasize the way that this first stanza is about things that the melancholic individual should not do. The /n/ sounds are almost like the sound of an angry parent; they also have a slightly desperate sound, hinting at the tempting qualities of those intoxicants listed during the rest of the stanza. This link between the /n/ sound and the speaker’s admonishments is echoed in the “not” and “nor” found in lines 5 to 7 as well.
The last two lines of the stanza also use alliteration effectively. The phrase “shade to shade”—also an example of diacope—emphasizes the metaphorical darkness of giving in to death. The speaker thinks melancholy should be embraced, rather than dulled by intoxication or annihilated by suicide. These two "shade[s]" represent an excess of this darkness (contrasted with the preferred "wakeful anguish of the soul"). The two /dr/ sounds in "drowsily" and "drown" (lines 9 and 10) draw this same link too.
The next alliteration is found in line 11:
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all
The two /f/ sounds contribute to the line's shifts in tone, with the first /f/ helping give the word a sprightly and upward ring which in turn emphasizes the more imposing, downtrodden sound of "fall." The same sound is echoed in line 13, in which melancholy is compared to a "weeping cloud" that nurtures "flowers." This link between "foster[ing]" and "flowers" supports the more general relationship between melancholy and beauty.
Skipping ahead, lines 26 to 29 use a number of alliterating /s/ sounds (also known as sibilance). These come as the poem is building to its peak, describing a kind of climax of pleasure/enjoyment of beauty which, at the same time, represents an intense moment of melancholy:
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
These lines also focus on the act of tasting. The /s/ sounds have a kind of mouthwatering quality that helps bring out this focus on taste, capturing the way "Joy's grape" feels as its bursts in the mouth.
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Get LitCharts A+Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
Lethe (LEE-thee) is a river in the mythological underworld of Ancient Greece. Those that drink its waters enter a state of oblivion—they forget their past.
As the title suggests, this poem is an ode. The ode is a verse form that dates back to Ancient Greece. Keats's poem consists of three stanzas, each with 10 lines.
In its original form, the ode was often celebratory; this ode is markedly different in tone, however. Likewise, Keats's poem does not fit into the more traditional formats originally established for odes (associated with the ancient poets Homer and Pindar). Keats developed his ode form because he felt that the other established forms did not quite fit what he wanted his poems to do.
The poem has a fairly clear progression from start to finish. The first stanza outlines things that the melancholic individual should not do as a response to their state of mind (e.g. intoxication and death). The second offers more positive advice as to what can be done: embrace melancholy by perceiving it in the beauty of nature and life. The third stanza strives to make sense of the previous two, arguing that all that's best about life is suffused with melancholy precisely because it cannot last.
It's worth noting that Keats originally intended for the poem to be about a hero's quest to find the goddess Melancholy. He deleted the first stanza, completely altering the tone and meaning of the poem. For readers that want to see it, it's copied below:
Though you should build a bark of dead men's bones,
And rear a phantom gibbet for a mast,
Stitch creeds together for a sail, with groans
To fill it out, bloodstained and aghast;
Although your rudder be a Dragon's tail,
Long sever'd, yet still hard with agony,
Your cordage large uprootings from the skull
Of bald Medusa; certes you would fail
To find the Melancholy, whether she
Dreameth in any isle of Lethe dull.
Deleting this stanza made the poem more ambiguous and mysterious. It also made the addressee of the poem (the "you") far less specific. As a result, the poem is capable of applying to many more people's lives, and it takes on a quieter, more introspective tone.
As with Keats's other odes, "Ode on Melancholy" is written in iambic pentameter. This is a line with five poetic feet, each comprised of a da DUM (unstressed-stressed) syllabic pattern. A good example of this would be line 15:
Then glut | thy sor- | row on | a mor- | ning rose,
There are numerous variations to this metrical scheme spread throughout the poem, some more significant than others. The first two lines, for example, are actually quite irregular, starting the poem on a tense footing (no pun intended):
No, no, | go not | to Leth- | e, nei- | ther twist
Wolf's-bane, | tight-root- | ed, for | its poi- | sonous wine;
The lines have a kind of gnarled and difficult quality to them, suggesting the troubles of a melancholic mind. As is often the case with Keats's verse, this is not the only way of scanning these lines, though it is perhaps the most intuitive.
Another important variation is in the trochee that appears in the first foot of line 12. A trochee puts the stress on the first syllable (DUM-da):
Sudden | from heav- | en like | a weep- | ing cloud,
Beginning with a stressed syllable brings a suddenness to the line, mirroring the description of the onset of the melancholy "fit."
Another variation is in line 23, when the personified "Joy" is said to have his hand at his lips "Bidding | adieu." This has a lilting quality to it that seems to convey the act of saying goodbye.
As a minor note, any time Keats uses the past tense -ed form of a verb, as in the phrase "globed peonies" in line 17, the -ed should be pronounced—i.e., "globèd" When he inserts an apostrophe instead, the word can be pronounced as normal, as in "to be kiss'd" in line 3.
So, as with Keats's other odes, the iambic pentameter in "Ode on Melancholy" is flexible. It plays with stress to emphasize certain phrases and images, yet it always returns to its basic da-DUM structure.
"Ode on Melancholy" is a formally organized poem that uses metrical and rhyming patterns. The first stanza is rhymed:
ABABCDECDE
The second follows suit. But the third stanza is rhymed:
ABABCDEDCE
This subtle shift in the rhyme scheme of the last stanza—the C and D rhymes switch spots in lines 28 and 29—draws attention to the physicality of the final lines, as if the rhyme itself "burst[s]" like "Joy's grape."
Generally speaking, the elaborateness of the rhyming pattern helps make the poem sound beautiful. This isn't just done for the sake of sounding nice, however—beauty is at the heart of the poem's subject matter, particularly in the relationship between beauty and melancholy. In the first stanza, the rhymes are part of the sound of intoxication—which the speaker warns against. In the second, they are part of the overall picture of nature's beauty. And in the third, they help demonstrate the close relationship between the two.
The speaker in "Ode on Melancholy" isn't given a specific identity. The odes are often taken to be the voice of Keats himself, but deciding one way or another isn't necessary for understanding or enjoying of the poems. What's important to note is that the speaker has a clear mission in this poem—to warn, advise, and inform.
It's not clear who the poem is addressed to, but the speaker spends the first stanza advising the reader on what intoxicants to avoid and cautioning against choosing death over life. These, according to the speaker, are not good responses to melancholy. Instead, the speaker feels that the addressee (perhaps standing in for anyone who is melancholic) should maintain "wakeful anguish" and embrace melancholy. One of the ways this can be done, argues the speaker in the second stanza, is to see the beauty and melancholy in nature. Indeed, in the third stanza the speaker explains that beauty and melancholy are inextricably linked: all beauty is ultimately melancholic, because nothing can last forever.
"Ode on Melancholy" is not really set in one specific place or time. However, there are a few features of the poem's overall atmosphere that it's important to take note of.
First off, the poem is an address from a speaker to a listener or reader. The speaker is advising the un-specified addressee (the "you") on how to respond to melancholy. In this way, the setting can be thought of as the space between the speaker and reader—the imaginative space of the poem.
Within this imaginative space, the poem summons a great deal of natural imagery. In the first stanza, this imagery is linked to poisonous plants while also alluding to mythology. These allusions range from Classical Greek mythology in the first couple of lines, to Christian and ancient Egyptian allusions later in the stanza. So, while talking about melancholy, the speaker infuses images of nature with a mythological atmosphere.
In the second stanza, the speaker describes a "weeping cloud" and a series of beautiful sights, such as "globed peonies." Again, these images are summoned as illustrative examples—the speaker mentions them to make a point about the relationship between beauty and melancholy. Still, they contribute to the sense that natural landscapes are an important part of the poem's setting.
The third stanza places the personified Melancholy within the "temple of Delight," characterizing her as a kind of Queen of all that's good about life. This stanza might be thought of as taking place in that "temple of Delight," a mythological space where the gods and goddesses of Beauty, Joy, Pleasure, and Melancholy mingle. That said, the speaker never lets the reader forget that this is an imagined space. It's concocted by the speaker in order to illustrate the nature of melancholy.
John Keats is now one of the most celebrated poets in the English language, and this one of his most celebrated poems. In his own lifetime, however, Keats struggled for recognition, overshadowed by more successful poets like William Wordsworth. "Ode on Melancholy" was written in an astonishing burst of creativity during the spring of 1819, during which Keats also wrote his other odes (except for "To Autumn," which was written slightly later, in September of the same year). These other odes include the equally famous "To Autumn" and "Ode to a Nightingale."
Keats is generally considered a key member of the Romantic poets, in particular of the second generation which included writers like Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Romanticism doesn't mean the same thing as "romantic"—instead, it is characterized, loosely speaking, by a deep-rooted belief in the power of the imagination, the transformative role of poetry in society, the importance of nature, and political engagement. Keats's writing was not well received during his lifetime, and he was the victim of snobbery from those who considered him to be an artistic imposter. However, his reputation quickly rose in the centuries after his death. He died in 1821 from tuberculosis, at the age of just 25.
"Ode on Melancholy" has a couple of specific literary influences to consider. The first of these was one of Keats's favorite and most reread books: Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy. This was first published in 1621 and was marketed as a kind of medical textbook on the subject of melancholy (which is a kind of catch-all term for different types of sadness and negative feeling). Burton himself had a wide-ranging definition of melancholy:
we call [those people] melancholy, that [are] dull, sad, sour, lumpish, ill-disposed, solitary, any way moved, or displeased.
According to Burton, no one alive was immune to such feelings. Crucially, he linked these feelings to mortality—and this relationship between melancholy and impermanence is key to Keats's poem.
Classical mythology is also an important part of the literary context of this poem. The first stanza makes three allusions to Greek/Roman myth: Lethe, Proserpine, and Psyche. This helps ground the poem in a kind of timelessness, as if Keats's argument applies to all of human history, not just to Keats's time period. Mythology also informs the personifications in the final stanza—of Beauty, Joy, Pleasure, Delight, and, most importantly, Melancholy. These figures are depicted almost like gods. Indeed, Melancholy even has a shrine in the "Temple of Delight."
Keats wrote this poem not long after the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution in 1789, which facilitated Napoleon's rise to power. The early 19th century can be considered a period during which people rethought the way that individuals relate to society. The influential poet/critic William Wordsworth was particularly interested in the idea of civil liberties, though he became more conservative as he grew older.
Keats certainly had more than his fair share of bad luck during his lifetime, partly informing his focus on melancholy and—in particular—the impermanence of life and beauty. He had already lost both parents and an infant brother, and would himself be dead from tuberculosis within a couple of years of writing this poem. He also struggled financially throughout his life, and was frequently the subject of scorn from the literary establishment.
Indeed, the odes were written during a period when Keats thought he would soon be ceasing his writing life. Having borrowed money from his brother, George, and now unable to return the favor, Keats intended to get more financially stable work and give up poetry—but not before writing a few more poems, which turned out to be some of the best written in the English language.
Portrait of John Keats by Joseph Severn — A painting done of Keats by his friend and contemporary, Joseph Severn.
The Anatomy of Melancholy — A link to a book that Keats read frequently, published by Robert Burton in 1621.
A Contemporary's Review of Keats — A link to John Gibson Lockhart's snarky review of Keats's poetry in 1818.
A Reading of "Ode on Melancholy" — A reading brought to you by the Keats Foundation.
More by Keats — A link to a detailed biography of Keats as well as more poems, including his other odes.