New Criticism，which firstly emerges in the 1920s，advocates the textual ontology by summing the traditional literary criticisms and focus on the text itself to figure out its intrinsic meanings.It emphasized close reading，particularly of poetry，to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained，self-referential aesthetic object.This essay is to analyze a well-known literary work written by John Keats，To Autumn，in New Criticism perspective and try to give interpretation to the theme and image by focusing on the words and figures of speech the poet uses in this poem.
　　Regarded as one of the most outstanding English poets，John Keats was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley.To Autumn is one of his master works and also preferred by critics because of this artistic value.In To Autumn，John Keats creates an extremely beautiful picture by using vivid environment description.From static scenery to dynamic scenery，the poet not only expresses his love toward autumn，but also transfers dreadful death into a natural alternation.
　　This poem is written in iambic pentameter.According to rhyme and subject construction，each stanza can be divided into two parts.The first part is the first four lines with the same rhyme：ABAB，meaning the first and the third lines rhyme and the second and fourth lines rhyme.The second part is the remaining seven lines with different rhyme in different stanzas.The first stanza rhymes CDEDCCE while the second and the third stanzas rhyme CDECDDE.As we can see from the rhyme that the middle three lines are actually not rhymed which may make the poem reads strange.Moreover，in content，the middle three lines give readers a sense of unease by using some special verbs such as swell，plump，sinking.
　　In the first stanza，the poet use personification to construct a lively and prosperous harvest season.He personifies autumn and the sun to a pair of friends，but both of them have the power to ripen those fruits and crops.Though the poet intends to describe the autumn rich with fruit and grain，his choice of words reveals his inner thought that all the achievements the autumn has made are just their conspiracy.We have to wonder：does the poet really love autumn？Fruits would be picked after they are quite ripe；flowers would be withered after being in full blossom；honey would spill over after the honeycomb is filled up.All the nice things can turn into dissatisfaction after further consideration，from which we can feel the complex and entangled feeling in the poet’s heart.

相關熱詞搜索：Autumn Analysis Perspective Criticism