How is imagery used in Keats' poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn"?

John Keats was an English Romantic poet.  Keats
highlighted the use of imagery in his poetry to speak to the follow characteristics
typical to the Romantic period. He valued feeling over reasoning (which was a
characteristic of the Age of Reason because many of the characteristics of the Romantic
period were developed their concern to move away from realism). Keats also typically
focused upon the importance of nature and of the
imagination.

As for the poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn", the
imagery here is based upon the urn as the main "character" in the text.  Here
personification is loosely used to show the urn as a wisdom-giver to the narrator of the
poem.

The urn is described by the narrator as being
representative of a couple different things: a virginal bride and a foster child. The
imagery on the urn represents more than a work of art for the narrator; it represents a
teller of tales, a wisdom giver.

The depictions on the urn
are similar to the descriptions of the urn itself. In the first stanza, the narrator
calls the urn an "un'ravished bride". This means that the urn, feminine, has wedded, but
has not completed marriage given consummation has yet to take place. Similar to this,
the images of men and women on one of the sides shows a snap-shot of what is to come
without depicting the scene has reached "consummation". The "Bold Lover", the trees, and
the "fair youth" are stuck in a place where time has no control. All must stay locked in
an act of "almosts" and "forevers".

In stanza three, a tree
is depicted more descriptively. Again, like the lovers and the urn itself, the tree is
frozen in a state of beauty- one where it will never lose its leaves or see spring to
renew itself. Like the preceding stanzas, this side of the urn depicts a time and place
where one is beautiful and will never see time change for
it.

Stanza four seems to be the one in which the questions
of the urn are asked. The narrator seems to be concerned as to why a sacrifice is
depicted on the urn given the other imagery seems to speak to moments of happiness.
Here, many questions are asked of the urn (who cannot reply and allow the narrator
comfort with "her" answers").

The fifth, and final, stanza
is where the narrator discusses the urn as a whole. Here, the narrator tells the urn
that it holds secrets that will never be explained given the urn has no voice. Instead,
the urn can meerly show pieces of a history in which the narrator finds only simply
comforts given the many questions he is left with.

The last
lines of the poem are by far the most famous of the
text:

Beauty
is truth, truth beauty- that is all

Ye know on earth, and
all ye need to know.

These
lines speak to the truth of the urn: beauty shows the truth and in truth one can find
beauty.  While the depiction of the sacrifice of the cow seems to be less than
beautiful, the truth of the need for the sacrifice is where true beauty lies. The
narrator does not need to know why the cow is being sacrificed. The narrator only needs
to find beauty in the truth that the cow needs to be
sacrificed.

Therefore, the imagery in the poem "Ode on a
Grecian Urn" allows the reader to get a visual image of the urn. Without the imagery,
the reader would not be able to understand the narrator's fascination with the piece of
art. For the narrator, the urn represents more than a vessel to carry things in. It
represents beauty in the world; and with this beauty comes truth--something the narrator
seems to need in his life.