Enticing conclusion: John Keats's ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’

Abstract

Abstract Time is the crux for all potential lyric writers as it is for all potential seducers, as Andrew Marvell demonstrates in his dual attempt to engage with his Coy Mistress and with his Coy Reader (both are seduced into attending by the energy and enigma of the poet's opening couplet). Because of his desire to suspend time2, the lyric poet has conspicuously refused the temporal harness that narrative applies with its implicit connections between verses, between lines, between words.