Ode to a Nightingale

The poem fuses "real melancholy" with "imaginary relief" to adequately express the double life of human experience. The poem’s movement through the different modes is achieved through a loose stylistic perfection; a dream-like experience of intoxication done with intense canto regularity. Ode to a Nightingale not only waxes and wanes between these realms, it vibrates deeply with a true look at what Keats in his life has endured, and foreshadows the death to come. Within the beauty there is still the ever-present, unrelenting mortality of man to ground us: "Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;/Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, /where youth grows pale, and spectra-thin, and dies" (Keats, ln. 24-6). Although, he is not too forlorn to take flight in the ecstasy of his own creative imagination and poetry. He allows the bird song to carry him off: "Away! Away! For I will fly to thee" (Keats, ln. 31). He escapes "the dull brain" (Keats, ln. 34) and forgets himself long enough to see "the Queen Moon is on her throne,/Clustered around by all her starry fays" (Keats, ln. 37-8). Stanzas 4 and 5 suppress the pain, which he returns to for the last three. However, we do not feel betrayed in either direction or pulled too

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He admired the nightingale as an immortal Bird, that can not be saddened by anything occurring around him no hungry generations tread thee down. He told the nightingale to fly away for I will fly to thee, yet rather than be carried off by Bacchus and his pard the Roman god of wine and intoxication, he wished to be carried off by wings of Poesy. In comparison to himself the nightingale seemed to have a life of ease, sitting among the trees without a care, simply singing. Yet while he is with the nightingale and her sweet song already with thee! tender is the night he imagined the Queen-Moon …on her throne, cluster'd around by all her starry Fays or fairies; for it is said that only during a full moon may one witness fairy dances. Continuing, he makes reference to Ruth of the Bible the sad heart of Ruth and how she resided in an alien land and may have listened to the nightingale while she longed for home. Perhaps he feels he was deceived by the song into believing it was one of happiness yet now he realizes the truth, that it is really a plaintive anthem. He compares the song of the bird with the song of his poetry when he wishes to be full of the true…Hippocrene which was a mythical fountain on Mount Helicon that inspired poetically. He bids the bird good-bye adieu! speaking of it as a deceiving elf. He compared his feelings to those of a person that had drunk hemlock or an opiate so that their senses had become dull, or as if drinking from Lethe-wards, a river of the lower world, which produced forgetfulness of past life. He compared the carefree life of the bird to the pain, suffering and mortality of men. This alludes to the magical condition he believes the nightingale possesses and how she is able to lead him to this world of lore. The speaker opened with the explanation my heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense as he listened to the song of the nightingale. Keats compared the bird to that of a Dryad, or a female spirit, which was assigned a certain tree to watch over and whose life was so closely connected to the tree that if it were to die so would the Dryad.

Approximate Word count = 1257
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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