"To Autumn," by John Keats, is a beautiful descriptive poem written to capture the author's deep love for autumn. Keats begins by speaking of crops plumping up to their full, ripe potentials. He continues by describing creatures lounging in the changing colors by the brook's side, inhaling the sweet scents of budding poppies and other plants. The author concludes his poem by describing the songful cries of the creatures of the sky as they fly south to keep warm for the winter. Keats effectively uses imagery, denotation, and connotation to depict his passion for the autumn.
Imagery is the representation through language of sensed experience. In the first stanza, Keats uses imagery through the sense of taste. Lines 6-8 speak of "fill[ing] all fruit with ripeness to the core, swell[ing] the gourd, and plump[ing] the hazel shells with a sweet kernel." These descriptions are to allow the reader to taste what Keats is tasting. In the second stanza, Keats uses imagery through smells and touch. Line 15 allows the reader to feel his "hair soft-lifted by the winnowing winds" and line 17 captures the drowsing and lovely "fume of the poppies" that the author so vividly senses. In the third stanza, Keats uses imagery through the sense of hearing. In lines 26 and 33, Keats directs a "wailful choir [of] the small gnats" and "the gathering swallows twitter[ing] in the skies" to the reader's ear. This use of imagery allows Keats to capture his memories of this season and the reader a chance to see autumn through Keats' eyes.
Denotation is the basic definition or dictionary of a word. In the first stanza, line 7 depicts the plants as swelling with ripeness. This effectively informs the reader that the harvest is near because the crops are becoming juicy, plump, and ripe. In the second stanza, lines 16 and 17 describe the fume of the poppies to the drowsing.
