Looked at cursorily, an urn is an unimpressive and poetically unpromising addressee. This has lent license to some critics to see the object as a funeral urn, which provides them the opportunity
“to enrich the poem with ponderous thoughts on death and transitoriness, or with a plethora of symbolic lore. Conversely, other critics have valiantly embraced the precariousness of the inappropriate object with an emphasis on the abject state of the disused utensil, the piece of debris, which through this abasement is elevated to the state of art. From this point of view Keats’ Ode is regarded as ancestral to surrealist translations of discarded utensils into art objects.” (Hofmann 251)
The genius of Keats is at display where he juxtaposes the static scene imprinted in the urn and its possible dynamic animation in real life. What Keats is implying is the magical quality of time itself, as it empowers and liberates the players in the scene to fulfill their desires. Yet, there is potential for decay and disappointment associated with the nature of time, which the immortality of static encapsulation evades. This comparison is best captured in these lines: “Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,/ Though winning near the goal – yet, do not grieve;/ She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,/ For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!” (lines 17-20) Hence, the poem is rich in its meaning and deep in its philosophical inquisition and also substantiates the poetic form’s suitability to thoughtful deliberation.
Hofmann, Klaus. “Keats’s Ode to a Grecian Urn.” Studies in Romanticism 45.2 (2006): 251+.
Kennedy, Thomas C. “Platonism in Keats’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’.” Philological Quarterly 75.1 (1996): 85+.
Rourke, James O’. Keats’s Odes and Contemporary Criticism. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1998.