Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market

“Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats (1820)

In this masterpiece, Keats personifies a Grecian urn and narrates stories about the characters on it. Keats uses contrast in some of the images, like when he describes the lovers who are perpetually separated but forever young and beautiful. Keats celebrates the timeless quality of the art he describes, and in a nod to Shakespeare, he suggests art has the power to defeat time and death. Keats writes the poem in strict form and follows a traditional structure while adhering to romantic era qualities of passion, love, and the elevation of art and emotion over ideas of logic and realism.

“Ode to the Onion" by Pablo Neruda (1957)

“Ode to the Onion” shares many similarities with “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market.” Here, Neruda again praises a common object and magnifies its significance with stacked metaphors, grand diction, and political suggestion. He compares the onion to a baby developing in the womb; he compares the dirt in which the onion grows to the ocean and Aphrodite; he compares the flowers of the onion to swords; and he compares the grown onion to a great star or constellation in space.