ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -“Heard Melodies Are Sweet, but Those Unheard Are Sweeter” is a line from “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats. The meaning is that the power of our imagination is often greater than reality. Music or melodies that are imagined are played perfectly with no possibility of error.

Detailed explanation-2: -The speaker says that the piper’s “unheard” melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time. He tells the youth that, though he can never kiss his lover because he is frozen in time, he should not grieve, because her beauty will never fade.

Detailed explanation-3: -“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard/Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; ” explain. This passage, taken from John Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn, refers to the superiority of art to the reality of life.

Detailed explanation-4: -The contrast between the ”Heard melodies” and the ”unheard” melodies links to the contrast that is established throughout the poem: The ”unheard” melodies of art are purer and perfect precisely because we cannot hear them and therefore do not involve our hearing to perceive them.