Hello friends today we are discuss this question, the question is -What do the Grasshopper and the Cricket metaphorically stand for in this poem? How do they contribute to the earth’s poetry?
In Keats’ ‘The Poetry of Earth’, the Grasshopper and the Cricket metaphorically stand for life’s pleasures and pain in youth and old age respectively. It also represents the vitality and
joyous mood of Nature. The Grasshopper takes delight in ‘summer luxury and chirps merrily hopping about from hedge to hedge among the “new – mown mead”. When he gets tired he “rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed”. Almost like the bees in ‘Ode to Autumn’ who are under the delusion that “warm days will never cease”, life seems perfect to the Grasshopper who is intoxicated with absolute enjoyment. The Cricket’s chirping is generally considered ominous by the country folk because there is something eerie about the sound produced by the insect which cannot be seen. This sound shatters the silence of a desolate winter evening. The Cricket resembles the Grasshopper in its way of chirping. So to a person almost lost in sleep, the two sounds appear to be the same. This symbolically refers to a possibis attainment of renewed vigoureatonld age. Thiage approaching death realises like the person almost lost in sleep that joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, life and death are the two sides of the same coin. They are the components that make up our lives.