Santiago G. Quinteros
Professor Elizabeth Signorotti
Literature 2501E
24 Oct 2018
Ode on Melancholy
Ode on melancholy represents what a common human being could feel in some
point of his or her life, the lack of joy and interest in life. As a romantic writer, Keats
summons up all his senses or feelings
In the first stanza we can notice two important aspects that will allow us to
understand the direction that Keats wanted to go in his poem. First of all, in the very first
words of the first stanza, Keats is contradicting what everyone might think about
depression or melancholy. He used a Greco-Roman language to set many of his thoughts
about melancholy; by saying “No, no, not go to Lethe” (1) John Keats contradicts the
general position when depression comes at you, that natural impulse that tells you to try to
get rid of it. Lethe, was one of the rivers of the underworld. The Greek mythology used to
tell that once you drink from that river you will forget everything about your past life. In
contrast, Keats was trying to say that, the natural instinct of someone that is going through
melancholy, is trying to eradicate those thoughts, maybe with help of alcohol, drugs or any
substance that will take your memory away.
Keats wanted to contradict that statement about melancholy, due to his thoughts on
it were different. In the fourth line of the first stanza we can notice another Greco-Roman
reference that gave us a little clue of what his thoughts were about. Proserpine, was a
