Page "To Autumn" Paragraph 69

Harold Bloom, in 1961, described " To Autumn " as " the most perfect shorter poem in the English language.

" Following this, Walter Jackson Bate, in 1963, claimed that "[...] each generation has found it one of the most nearly perfect poems in English.

" Later, in 1973, Stuart Sperry wrote, To Autumn ' succeeds through its acceptance of an order innate in our experience – the natural rhythm of the seasons.

It is a poem that, without ever stating it, inevitably suggests the truth of ' ripeness is all ' by developing, with a richness of profundity of implication, the simple perception that ripeness is fall.

" In 1981, William Walsh argued that " Among the major Odes [...] no one has questioned the place and supremacy of ' To Autumn ', in which we see wholly realized, powerfully embodied in art, the complete maturity so earnestly laboured at in Keats's life, so persuasively argued about in his letters.

" Literary critic and academic Helen Vendler, in 1988, declared that " in the ode ' To Autumn ,' Keats finds his most comprehensive and adequate symbol for the social value of art.