Ans: “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is one of the most celebrated romantic poems by the great Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821). In the poem, Keats has established the supremacy of art over life very brilliantly. In it, he explores the power and permanence of art as depicted on the urn and establishes its connection with transient life. 

To Keats, art is permanent while life changes and passes. In all his odes, we find a quest to reconcile art with life but to Keats, it seems they are quite opposite to each other. So, he establishes the contrasts between the two- he contrasts the inevitable disappointments of human life with the eternal beauty of art. This is shown more vividly and more beautifully in his “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, In the poem, the ancient Greek urn or the marble vase is the symbol of eternal beauty, an ecstatic joy that is opposed to the actual living world that is a subject to decay and death.

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” opens with descriptions of the Urn as a bride, a foster child, and a historian. All these personifications subtly indicate the permanence of the urn over time. The urn by virtue of its permanent virtue has immortalized those objects carved on it. Keats affirms the power of imagination over reality through the pictures of a piper piping his flute. The music heard by the physical ears may be sweet but there is a limit to its sweetness. On the contrary, the music not actually produced is more entertaining than real music on account of its breathing a note of permanence and flawless perfection. The poet says —

“Heard melodies are sweet but those unheard are sweeter.”
The world depicted on the urn’s surface is an ideal one.

Keats emphasizes the permanence of art against the transitoriness of human life through the picture of the lover who is always trying to kiss his beloved but he is unable to kiss her because he is only a picture on the urn. The poet consoles the lover that he should not be frustrated because his beloved will never lose her beauty and he will never lose his passion for her. But in real life young ladies lose their youth in the course of time and their passion for love cools down after fruition. The over-gratification of the desire for the flesh and blood meets with a sad end:

“That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d
A burning forehead and a parching tongue.”

In the opinion of Keats, art is immortal. It exists while all earthly things are subject to decay. We, human beings, will be perished over the course of time. We die and make a flight to the other world. But the Grecian Urn is ever-lasting. It will never grow old. When the present generation will lose the freshness and vigor of youth with the arrival of old age, the urn will remain unchanged by old age. The painting on the urn will always be inspiring and stimulating. It will stimulate our feelings forever and ever and convey the great lesson-

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty-that is all.”

In the poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, the urn though silent is an eloquent proof of the constancy of art. Human life and happiness may be brief yet art may enshrine them with an ideal beauty that outlives its years. The figures and all they symbolize are gone but art has given lasting durability and so links the ages together.

So we can say that this is how Keats established the supremacy of art over life in his celebrated poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” very successfully.