One of the most beloved poems by the English poet John Keats (1795-1821), ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ (1819) is perhaps best known for its closing two lines:
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty, – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’
Referring to the work as ‘arguably the best poem from arguably the best Romantic poet’, in this video essay Evan Puschak (aka the Nerdwriter) offers a stanza-by-stanza breakdown of Keats’s words, which revolve around a speaker contemplating the meaning of the images painted onto an ancient Grecian urn. Highlighting how the poem contrasts the ephemeral realities of life with the seemingly eternal beauty of art, Puschak makes an apropos case for the work’s own enduring power.
Video by The Nerdwriter
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Death
Even in modern secular societies, belief in an afterlife persists. Why?
9 minutes
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Nature and landscape
Take a serene hike through an ancient forest, inspired by a Miyazaki masterpiece
6 minutes
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Design and fashion
The mundane becomes mesmerising in this deep dive into segmented displays
14 minutes
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Physics
A song of ice, fire and jelly – exploring the physics and history of the trumpet
9 minutes
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Architecture
Tour the European architecture that dreamed of a wondrous, fictitious China
16 minutes
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Spirituality
Trek alongside spiritual pilgrims on a treacherous journey across Pakistan
6 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
Photographs offer a colonialist window to the past – one that must be challenged
14 minutes
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Animals and humans
An artist and ants collaborate on an exhibit of ‘tiny Abstract Expressionist paintings’
5 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
The world turns vivid, strange and philosophical for one plane crash survivor
16 minutes