Literary critics would definitely be amused if they are told that the best photo captions in verse were written by John Keats in the celebrated Ode On A Grecian Urn. it may not have been the poet's intention to look at the pictures wrought on the urn from a caption writer's point of view. However, even if it does an injustice to Keats, two principles may be drawn from this romantic poem and applied with profit by the sub, whose job also involves writing creative photo captions.
The first principle takes the reader from a world outside the photograph into a world within. The second principle does quite the opposite: the reader is transported from the world within the photograph into a world outside. But these principles can only be effectively applied to stand-alones, also known as wild art. For news photographs, where fact is more sacred than the imagination, prosaic captions would be in order. But this editorial is only interested in the creative variety.
In the second stanza, Keats writes: "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; / Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, / Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone." The heard melodies belong to the real world. The melodies that we cannot hear but still can enjoy are on the urn. This is the first principle which can be pressed into service whenever the reader is required to be led from the known to the unknown.
The second principle is demonstrated in the penultimate stanza: "Who are these coming to the sacrifice? / To what green altar, O mysterious priest,/ Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, / And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? / What little town by river or sea shore, / Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, / Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? / And, little town, thy streets for evermore / Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell / Why thou art desolate, can e'er return." Writers are always told not to state the obvious. But Keats seems to do just that and focusses on the scene: "Who are these coming to the sacrifice?" And then he takes us to a little town that lies beyond the picture. This is the ultimate imagination, a touchstone for all caption writers.
Readers of the ode may find something more imaginative and rightly so in the concluding lines of the second stanza: "Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave / Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; / Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, / Though winning near the goal -- yet, do not grieve; / She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, / For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!" Beautiful though these lines are, it is not very easy to realise that the second principle is in operation here and hence may not serve as a good illustration of it.
Be that as it may, granted that these two principles yield creative captions, can it be said that Keats is infallible? Just look at the concluding lines of the opening stanza: "What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? / What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? / What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?" Is he not stating the obvious? Yes... but actually No. The visuals on the urn are just a product of a poet's imagination; and we are left only with the Keatsian captions to reconstruct the images.
We now live in an age which leaves nothing to the imagination. Our culture is dominated by visuals. Photo captions, however, can continue to be creative and relevant as long as they choose to apply the Keatsian principles discussed here and refuse to state the obvious.
