Aestheticism in John Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn

Abstract

This paper analyzes the aesthetic elements in Keats’s creative ideas by close reading to his Ode on a Grecian Urn. It is suggested that there exists a correlation between Keats’s and Wilde’s aesthetic ideas. First, both of them emphasize the effect of imagination on art; second, they separate the world of art and that of reality, confirming the autonomy and utilitarian of art; last, they both regard art as a static aesthetic activity, holding that the artist’s attitude toward everything in reality is a neutral one, and look upon the world with an artistic vision.