The Portrayal of Eternal Innocence and the Sufficiency of
             Beauty in John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
             Imagine the following: a bride dressed in white on her wedding day, savage men chasing after women, the lingering subject of love, or a peaceful, uncorrupted town. What do these topics have in common? Through the use of these topics, John Keats portrays the theme of eternal innocence and the sufficiency of beauty throughout his poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn."
             In the first stanza of the poem which has a rhyme scheme of ababcdedce, Keats introduces the theme of eternal innocence and the sufficiency of beauty with reference to the "unravished bride of quietness." Accepting her purity of not yet engaging in the sexual actions of marriage, the urn portrays the bride in this state, and she will remain like so forever. Also in the first stanza, Keats uses the literary technique of cacophony to describe savage men chasing women into the dark, mysterious, and savage woods. Some of the cacophonic words include "thy, Arcady, and ecstasy." Using these words, Keats makes the urn capture the picture of the chase before any sexual desires or intentions are fulfilled. Since the urn ceases to describe anything past the chase itself, the situation is purely innocent with beauty thus complying with the theme.
             Also evident throughout the second and third stanzas is the theme of eternal innocence and beauty. Keats writes of a young man sitting under a tree with the girl whom he loves. He is playing a pan flute to the girl expressing his passion for her through music. Once captured by
             the urn, the picture will remain like so forever. The trees with the leaves, the maiden, and the young man himself will always remain the same. He will always play the flute and can never kiss the girl. Keats uses the following lines in this stanza: "She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fa...