Lesson video

Hello, everyone.

Thank you very much for joining me.

I'm Mr. Blackburn.

Today, we're going to be looking at how Keats uses language in his poem "To Autumn." But before we begin, you'll need a pen and paper.

You'll need to turn off any notifications or things which might distract you.

And if you can, you'll need to try to find somewhere quiet to work.

And once you've done all of that, let's start the lesson.

What are we going to be doing today? Well, we're going to start off by recapping everything you already know about the poem "To Autumn" by John Keats.

Then we're going to look at how Keats uses a particular piece of figurative language called personification.

We'll start off by defining personification, and then we'll look at different examples of personification from the poem.

Finally, I'll ask you to do a short piece of writing to consolidate what you know.

Now let's find out what you already know about the poem by doing a quiz.

I love a quiz.

Which one of these statements is true? Is it option one, which says, "To Autumn" was written by William Wordsworth.

Is it option two, which says, "To Autumn" was written by William Shakespeare.

Is it option three, "To Autumn" was written by John Keats.

Or option four, "To Autumn" was written by Charlotte Smith.

Three, two, one.

If you said John Keats, you were correct.

Well done.

Which one of these statements is true? Option one, the poem is in the form of an ode.

Option two, the poem is in the form of a sonnet.

Option three, the poem is in the form of a ballad.

Or option four, the poem is in the form of an epic.

Three, two, one.

If you said that the poem is written in the form of an ode, you were correct.

Well done.

What about these statements? Option one says, Keats was part of the original Romantic writers.

Option two says that Keats was a part of the Gothic movement.

Option three says that Keats was a writer during the Renaissance.

And option four says that Keats was part of the second generation of Romantic writers.

Three, two, one.

If you said that Keats was a part of the second generation of Romantic writers, give yourself a point.

Okay, four more statements.

Which one of these is true? Option one, Keats thinks that autumn is the worst season of the year.

Option two, Keats thinks that autumn is a season filled with plentiful fruits.

Option three, Keats thinks that autumn is a season filled with red leaves.

Or option four, Keats thinks that autumn is a season of death and decay.

Three, two, one.

Plentiful fruit.

If you remember, Keats says that autumn provides us with crops and harvests.

Okay, another set of options.

Which one of these is true? In the final stanza, Keats writes about the smells of autumn.

Option two, in the final stanza, Keats writes about the sights of autumn.

Option three, in the final stanza, Keats writes about the sounds of autumn.

Or option four, in the final stanza, Keats writes about the weather in autumn.

Three, two, one.

Keats writes about the sounds of autumn as they slowly die away and winter starts to encroach.

Now, before we go any further, I want to teach you a new word, and it's one of my favourite words, because it's just so much fun to say.

John Keats imagines that autumn makes a lot of food and different types of fruit ready for us.

And another word for having a lot of something is an abundance, or when you have enough of something, it is abundant.

So you'll see the definition at the bottom of your screen, abundance, having a very large quantity of something.

And you might want to write that down because it will be a really useful word for when we talk about Keats' feelings of joy and pleasure towards autumn.

"How do I use it in a sentence, though, Mr. Blackburn?" you must be asking.

Well, here are three examples.

There was an abundance of food on the table.

The harvest had created an abundance of crops for the farmers to gather.

The abundance of choices was overwhelming.

So it means having a lot of something.

In this case, lots of choices.

Make sure you've written it down.

Don't forget the definition.

Brilliant.

Here are three questions that I'd like you to answer in full sentences.

Who wrote "To Autumn"? What form is the poem written in? And what does the poet think about autumn? And as an extra challenge, I want you to see if you could include the word abundance.

Pause the video, answer the questions, and then restart the video to check your answers.

Excellent work.

Let's check your answers.

The first question said, who wrote the poem? And in a full sentence, you've hopefully answered John Keats, a Romantic poet, wrote the poem.

Question two asked you, what form is the poem written in? And in a full sentence, I hope you've answered, the poem is written in the form of an ode.

And question three, and that was a challenge, because I asked you to include the word abundance as well, was what does the poet think about autumn? And I've answered, the poet thinks that autumn is filled with an abundance of fruit and joyful sounds of nature.

You might have written something different, and that's fine, but if you don't have the correct answers or there's something in my answers that you think you might want to borrow, then now's the time to do it before we go any further.

Right, personification.

You might have come across this already before, but if you haven't, that's all right.

What is personification? Well, personification is a type of figurative language, and all figurative language means is the kind of language a poet or a writer uses to express themselves, which is different to the everyday language that you or I might use in conversation.

For example, metaphors and similes are also types of figurative language.

Now, personification is something very specific.

It's where an author makes something which isn't a human do something that humans would normally do.

So here's an example.

The daffodils were dancing in the breeze.

Why is that an example of personification? Well, it's personification because daffodils don't really dance.

Humans dance, but the way that they were swaying in the breeze reminded the poet of a dance.

So personification is when things which aren't human do things which humans do.

And what I'd like you to do is pause the video for just a second and fill in these missing gaps.

So you can copy down the paragraph and fill in the missing gaps.

If you're stuck, you can always rewind the video, or you can use your own notes to help you.

But this is so that you have your own definition of what personification is.

So pause the video and come back when you're finished.

And here are the answers.

Personification is a type of figurative language.

Personification is when an author makes something which is not a human do something which a human would do.

For example, the daffodils were dancing in the breeze.

If you got all of these answers correct, well done.

If you missed a couple of those answers, then now is the time to fill them in.

In his poem "To Autumn," Keats personifies two different things.

Firstly, he personifies the autumn.

He imagines the entire season as a beautiful woman.

The second thing which Keats personifies is the sun, and he personifies the sun as a man.

Autumn and the sun, the man and the woman work together to create an abundance of crops.

Now, let's remind ourselves if the poem and let's see if we can find some examples of personification.

Here's the first stanza of the poem.

Stanza is the correct term for a group of lines in a poem, which you might know is as verse, but we use the word stanza.

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; conspiring with him how to load and bless with fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; to bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, and fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; to swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells with a sweet kernel; to set budding more, and still more, later flowers for the bees, until they think warm days will never cease, for summer as o'er-brimmed their clammy cells." Now remember, Keats personifies two things in his poem.

The first is autumn as a woman, and the second is the sun as a man.

Can you find any examples of personification in this stanza? Well, how about here? Close bosom-friend.

The autumn can't really be a friend of anyone, because it's a season, but Keats is making it sound as though autumn and the sun know each other very well and work closely together.

Conspiring with him.

Now, to understand this, we need to understand what conspire means, and it means to plan or plot something secretly.

Again, a season can't do that.

The sun can't do that.

But using personification, Keats imagines that that's exactly what they're doing.

And this is where we see the sun personified as a man.

The idea that the two are conspiring makes it appear that they're being secretive.

What could their secret be? Well, I think it's probably that they're both working incredibly hard to produce more crops than last year.

They want to make the most abundant harvest that they can.

So you can see how Keats turns these two ideas into people.

This is personification.

What I'd like you to do then is use this sheet to keep a track of personification in the poem.

I've given you a sentence starter for the first stanza.

Keats uses personification to do what? What does he do with personification? What does he personify? What does he make these personified things do? Pause the video for just a second and then come back and we'll check your answer.

Welcome back.

So here's my answer.

Yours might look slightly different, but as long as it's the general gist of this, that's okay.

Keats uses personification to present the autumn and the sun as a man and a woman who conspire to create an abundance of crops.

If you haven't included the word abundant or abundance in your answer, then maybe now is the time to have a go.

Here's the second stanza of the poem.

"Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find thee sitting careless on a granary floor, thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: and sometimes like gleaner thou dost keep steady thy laden head across a brook; or by a cyder-press, with patient look, thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours." So again, Keats personifies autumn into being a woman, but it's slightly different here, in that she's actually performing actions rather than just conspiring with the sun.

So everything which is highlighted in pink, we can think of as an example of a personification.

Now you might not be familiar with these two words.

The first is granary, which is a place which is used to store grain, and the second is drows'd, which means made drowsy.

Now, because this stanza is almost entirely made up of personification, it's really interesting to analyse.

Keats is still presenting her as a woman.

This time, however, she's not a conspirator.

Instead, she is a woman whose job it is to work really hard at collecting in all of the crops at harvest.

So he's imagining her as someone literally working in the fields, digging up the crops and bringing them in.

Now, obviously that's not really what autumn does.

Autumn is the time that harvest often takes place, but the season doesn't literally work in a field.

Here's another example.

"Who may find thee sitting careless on a granary floor, thy soft hair lifted by the winnowing wind; or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep." Here, autumn is described as being careless, but why is she careless? Is it because she doesn't care? Well, I don't think that's it.

I think autumn's presented as careless because she's safe in the knowledge that she's already made, produced a bumper harvest for the year.

She's already done better than she had last year, so she can take a little while to reflect on the leaves turning golden around her, perhaps.

Another example.

"And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep steady thy laden head across a brook." And to understand this, we really need to know what a gleaner is, and a gleaner is someone who looks for grain and helps collect grains in during the harvest, and often carries that grain in baskets balanced on their head.

So again, this tells us that the harvest must have been abundant.

There must have been a lot of grain to collect in, if someone can carry it in a basket on their head, but it also reminds us just how busy autumn would be if autumn were a person.

And finally, "Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, thou watchest the last ooozing hours by hours." Now, a cyder-press is a machine where you crush apples to get their juice out of, but it can take quite a while.

So autumn here is shown to be patient and being able to wait for the gratification that comes at the end of its work.

So this might show us that the season's passing really slowly.

It's a long autumn.

It might show us that people are quite willing to be a little bit more laid back in the autumn, perhaps after they've collected the harvest in.

But I also think that it shows that Keats is hoping that winter never arrives.

The more patient he is, the longer he waits, perhaps it just won't arrive.

And maybe that's what autumn, the personification in the poem is also thinking.

So again, I'd like you to fill in the second stanza on this sheet.

Pause the poem for just a couple of.

Pause the video, sorry, for just a couple of minutes and come back when you're done.

Welcome back.

Here's my answer.

Keats personifies autumn as a busy woman to show the hard work and patience that producing crops takes.

If yours doesn't look like that, you might want to just adjust yours slightly.

If you've written something better than me, then well done.

Okay, the third stanza, and if you remember, odes generally have three stanzas, so that's one way that we know this is written in the form of an ode.

"Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, while barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, and touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn among the river sallows, borne aloft or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; and full-grown lambs bleat from hilly bourn; hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft the red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; and gathering swallows twitter in the skies." Well, here's an example of personification.

"Thou hast, thy music, too." Remember, autumn's not a person.

We wouldn't address it as you, which is what thou is doing.

So Keats is talking directly to the season of autumn as if it's a person.

After all of the hard work of the season, winter's nearly arrived, and autumn's feeling sad.

Why might it be feeling sad? Well, it's going to have to give way to winter, isn't it? If autumn was a person, then autumn's going to have to die in order for winter to arrive.

Finally, I'd like you to fill out the box for stanza three.

Finally, Keats personifies autumn as he speaks to her directly, telling her that.

Pause the video for just a couple of minutes, fill that box out, and then come back and we'll check your answers.

Welcome back, and here's my answer.

Finally keeps personifies autumn as he speaks to her directly, telling her that although autumn is nearly over, it's the most joyful of all the seasons, and that there is no need to be sad.

So he tells her that you have your own music as well.

The other seasons have their own music.

Autumn is my favourite.

Excellent work so far.

Now, let's test what you know.

Here are two questions, and the first is a little bit of a test for you, and the second is asking you to think about how personification changes throughout the poem.

Let's look at the first question.

How does Keats use personification in "To Autumn"? Keats uses personification when he imagines.

Well, what does he imagine? He imagines autumn as a woman.

He imagines the sun as a man.

He imagines them conspiring with each other, plotting with each other to make the most abundant autumn ever.

Perhaps you could use some of those ideas in your answer.

The second question asks you how the use of personification changes throughout the poem.

So I want you to think about how autumn is personified in the first stanza.

She's presented as a conspirator.

In the second stanza, how does that change? Well, she's presented as someone who works hard, but she's also presented as someone who can sometimes be patient, and maybe a little bit lazy.

In the third stanza, her portrayal changes again.

How is the portrayal of autumn different in the third stanza to the rest? Well, the third stanza's much more reflective.

We get the idea that autumn is sad or upset about the fact that her season is coming to an end.

You could use some of these ideas in your writing, and I'm sure you have your own ideas, too.

So what I'd like you to do is pause the video, write answers to these in as much detail as you can, and when you have, come back and we'll compare your answers to mine.

Welcome back.

Right.

Here's my answer to question number one.

Keats uses personification when he imagines autumn as a woman, and the sun as a man who conspire together to create an abundance of crops at harvest time.

Easy, right? Now, if yours looks like that, brilliant.

If yours doesn't look like that, now's the time to fix it.

If you haven't used the word abundance or abundant, make sure you add that in.

Now for question number two.

Firstly, autumn is presented as a close bosom friend of the maturing sun.

She is a conspirator and is someone mysterious but ultimately generates unkind.

And if you notice, I've used an embedded quotation to prove my point.

Secondly, autumn becomes a hard working woman who reaps the crops and carries the grain as the bountiful harvest is ready to be collected.

Finally, autumn is an old woman who is worried about the winter, but Keats reassures her that autumn is a season which is loved by everybody.

Now, again, your answers might look slightly different to mine, and that's okay.

Poetry is all about our own personal interpretations of the text, but I think that my answers have some really good things in.

So maybe you can find one or two things in my answer which might not appear in yours, and you can always add it into your own work.

Well done, everyone.

You've worked incredibly hard this lesson looking at figurative language and the way that Keats uses personification to turn autumn into a person.

Make sure you take the quiz at the end of the lesson just to prove how much you know.

Well done for all of your work.

Goodbye.