Final answer:
The debate over John Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' focuses on the poem's concluding line, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' with discussions by T.S. Eliot and Cleanth Brooks concerning its coherence within the entire work and its relation to New Criticism and Platonic ideals.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student's question pertains to the interpretation of the concluding lines of John Keats's poem Ode on a Grecian Urn, specifically the phrase "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." Literary critics, such as T.S. Eliot and Cleanth Brooks, have debated these lines' significance and their fit within the overall poem. Eliot considered them to be a flaw, a statement that felt out of place within the poem, whereas Brooks sought to defend the lines as central to the poem's theme, emphasizing the connection between the beauty of poetry and its capacity for truth. This debate can be contextualized within the larger framework of New Criticism and its focus on the close reading of a text's internal elements and meanings. Moreover, this interpretation can be related to Platonic ideals, which hold that true reality is eternal and unchanging, encompassing notions of beauty and goodness.