Ode on a Grecian Urn Wisdom and Knowledge Quotes

Once again, the speaker suggests that the wisdom of the urn is connected to its silence. The line "tease us out of thought" is one of the most mysterious in the poem. It could indicate that the urn doesn’t really have wisdom to impart; that it can only cause confusion on the part of the observer. Or it could mean that the wisdom of the urn is higher than or "beyond" mere thought, which is conducted primarily through language.

Keats distills the urns message down to these two simple, homey-sounding lines. Is this a cop-out, as T.S. Eliot famously believed? Or does the beauty of these lines, combined with their vague and confusing content, only prove the point that Keats wanted to make? And it’s a radical point, to be sure. If the speaker had his way, moral education would consist not of rules and life lessons, but of the experience of beauty. By the way, have you noticed how when you visit a beautiful place with other people, everyone acts a little nicer?