Imagination is a curious thing. When used properly, it can take us up into a world beyond our mortal state of time and affairs. The external expression of imagination is creativity, of bringing something into being that has not been before. This is precisely what got Mr. Keats all excited about an urn: the creative expression engraved upon it.
Keats carries on a simultaneous celebration and lament over the art on the urn. Though he rejoices in the depicted expression, he ponders that perhaps the “melodies ... unheard are sweeter.” Though the art celebrates a moment, Keats knows that it can never change. It is stagnant with no further potential to obtain. In a way, he is right - but only if your imagination interprets it that way.
Art - used in this sense as any form or expression of creativity - comes alive only through interpretation. Just as the Grecian Urn sat still, its art could’ve gone unnoticed. Thus, the poem itself would have remained so as well. Creativity builds a bridge to sublimity which we must continuously cross if we wish to truly live ...
Keats described it himself:
“O mysterious priest, lead’st thou ...”
Though I have no way of knowing what Keats truly meant by this phrase, I am free to make it come alive through my own creative interpretation. A priest is a guide, a mediator between this realm and the spiritual realm. I submit that so is creativity.
Creativity unveils a deeper side of things which we cannot see without imagination. Though the urn is nothing grand, it was blessed with a dose of creativity. Just as an urn is a reminder of the connection between our physical realm and the realm after death, creativity is a priest that guides us to things beyond us within the things among us.
But the priesthood of faith is even greater. For there is a High Priest who created it all to call our imaginations back to the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17).
There’s a source that satisfies, a source that my soul incessantly pursues ...
Soli Deo Gloria.
I commented on Alisha's blog,"Poetry's Confusing, A Post In Rhyme."
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