In the poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn" - closing lines?In the poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn" - the closing lines, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty.' That...

I wonder if there are any other two lines that are debated
so much.  The closing couplet to the poem is really profound.  There will be no easy
answers here and I strongly advise you to take what you find here, what you find in your
class discussions/ notes, your instructor's analysis, and, most importantly, your own
perceptions and merge them together in understanding the last two lines.  I think that
the context of the poem of Keats staring at this urn and the beauty within it is
important.  The urn is the launching pad for the philosophical ideas and the inquiry
that Keats explores in the poem.  The challenge here though is that Keats struggles to
make the leap between what is happening in the urn and the world outside of it.  Art has
the advantage of being cloistered in one moment in frozen time.  The beauty of the urn
is suspended because it is within art.  As an artist, Keats was driven with the idea of
how can art's perfection be something within the grasp of the real world.  Probably more
than any other Romantic thinker, Keats was animated with a sense of this notion of
artistic and aesthetic perfection in his work.  How does he, as an artist, create a
realm that transcends frozen conditions and brings out the essence of truth and beauty?
 How does one move from mere abstraction to actual replication of such elements?  His
closing lines might be a way for him to attempt to make peace with the fact that
elements of truth and beauty might lie beyond his grasp, beyond anyone's, and simply
exist as a realm for us to wish to enter, where "angels dare to tread."  It is almost as
if the last lines create a sweet pain of consciousness where we know that we will never
be able to create such elements in our art, but rather to simply behold them and bask in
their presence is enough.  When Keats sees the beauty and truth of the urn, it fills him
with enough satisfaction to be able to appreciate and express that he can feel such an
experience.  This subjective conception of supposedly objective ideals is consistent
with Romantic tendencies.  At the same time, the closing lines help to bring out the
"negative capability" that is such a part of Keats' work and Romanticism in its response
to the Enlightenment period's affirmation of scientific inquiry.  The idea that there
are realms where we, as human beings, must be content with the unknown is something that
Romantics, and especially Keats, advocated, and the closing couplet to the poem might be
a statement in this light, as well.