The Dialectics of Movement in Keats's “To Autumn”

Abstract

“To Autumn” should not be read merely as a static poem expressive of perfection and sadness. All kinds of mutation can be recognized in it: temporal changes (within the season, within the day), changes in space and angle of view, in the kind of biology and sociology alluded to, in syntax and rhyme patterns. These can be recorded as a series of curves, each of which differs from the others in direction or shape. Critical interpretations of the poem result from the combination of several of these curves. However, most interpretations ignore the background of the curves, the solid and encompassing, if inarticulate, “nature in process” on which the curves are superposed. Although still more interpretations, such as a sociopolitical one, could be devised by combining individual curves, none of them will be fully significant unless it takes into account the deep, vast, indifferent voice of nature itself slowly passing, which Keats managed to summon to a background presence.