Assignment p.5

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Name    :- Bambha Kajal A.

Sem      :- 2

Roll no   :-17

Batch     :- 2017-2019

Paper no :- The Romantic Literature 

Enrollment no :- 2069108420180002

Email id :-kajalbambha16@gmail.com

Submitted to  :-
                            Department of English,MKBU





Topic :- Critically appreciate "Ode to a Nightingale"

  Introduction :-

Ode to a Nightingale" is a personal poem that describes Keats's journey into the state of Negative capability. The tone of the poem rejects the optimistic pursuit of pleasure found within Keats's earlier poems , rather, explores the themes of nature, Transience and mortality, the latter being particularly personal to Keats.

The nightingale described within the poem experiences a type of death but does not actually die. Instead, the songbird is capable of living through its song, which  are a fate that humans cannot expect. The poem ends with an acceptance that pleasure cannot last and that death is an inevitable part of life. In the poem, Keats imagines the loss of the physical world and sees himself dead as a sod  over which the nightingale sings. The contrast between the immortal nightingale and mortal man sitting in his garden, is made all the more acute by an effort of the imagination. The presence of weather is noticeable in the poem, as spring came early in 1819, bringing nightingales all over the heath.

Summary:-

The poet describes himself in a profound state of physical torment as if drugs into a sleep state, engrossed in an unseen nightingale song. The setting is unspecified, but readers can imagine the poet in a garden or perhaps in the woods, during springtime.when nightingales nest the poet addresses the bird directly, a poetic device known as apostrophe, stating his admiration for the nightingale happiness. At this point the nightingale suggests to the reader that it embodies, at minimum, two symbolic meanings: The bird’s song suggests that the bird represent while the poets description of the bird as being like a Greek wood nymph suggests that the bird symbolizes nature.
In stanza two, the poet yearns for an imaginative identification with the bird, perhaps assisted by wine  by which he can escape the ordinary world and disappear into the happier world represented by the nightingale. In stanza three, the bird’s world is contrasted to all the pain such as aging  disease and despair that defines human experience.In the fourth stanza, the poet rejects the escape that alcohol can provide, preferring the flight of poetry. Overall, through his desire for symbolic union with the bird stanzas two through four outline the poet’s desire to  escape the human condition .



Theme  Ode to Nightingale :-

 Reality

It is  hard to pinpoint exactly when the poem leaves the normal  world  because the speaker's version of normal  involves acting like he's on the druges opium. But by the fourth stanza it has become clear that he has joined the nightingale in a dark, lush fantasy world. His journey takes him close to the experience of death, but the spell is broken when the bird flies away unexpectedly. The entire poem is characterized by the speaker's altered mental state, which he claims is not due to alcohol or drugs, although he compares it to these things.

Happiness :-

 Is happiness  and unhappiness  a more appropriate theme for Ode to a Nightingale We're not sure. The speaker is mighty unhappy about the demands placed on him by life, time, and age. He hates to consider that young, beautiful people  the Romantic A list    will eventually be old and incoherent. But he claims that the  such his heart feels is due to extreme happiness for the nightingale, so we'll have to take his word for it. He seems content enough, at least, to have an I could die happy moment around the middle of the poem.

 Morality :-

The speaker of  Ode to a Nightingale fools himself into believing that the nightingale is immortal, or at least its song is. But this statement seems only to give him another excuse to complain about human mortality  a common complaint in Keats's poetry. The nightingale's song echoes through generations of history, from Ancient Greece to Biblical times through the present. Keats was maybe the most romantic notice the small of the British Romantic poets, and he might have agreed with the saying that you shouldn't trust anyone over thirty. It seems that the worst aspect of death is not that old people must die, but that young people must turn into old people who die.

Analysis  :-

 The Ode to a Nightingale is written in eight ten-line stanzas and is metrically variable. The eighth line of each stanza is written in iambic trimester, while the first seven lines and last two are written in iambic pentameter. Iambic trimester occurs when there are only three accents in a line of poetry. This poem displays a complex form of end rhyme scheme unique to the poem. Each verse of “Ode to a Nightingale” has a rhyme scheme AB,AB,CD,EC,DE. 

This rhyme scheme is used throughout the entire poem; however, there are a few instances where off-rhymes appear in place of the perfect rhymes. A good example of off-rhyming appears in the second stanza between lines in 16 and 1. Line 16 reads, Full of the true  the blushful Hippocrene, while line 1 reads, That I might drink, and leave the world unseen. I use these two lines as an example of off-rhyming because these two lines show Keats’s notion of writing lines that have a centralized idea involving alcohol. Off  rhyming also appears in the sixth verse, specifically in lines 55 and 58 where the words die and ecstasy are used to end the lines. These two words do not appear to perfectly rhyme with one another. Keats uses these kinds of rhyme  to enhance the emotions of the poem. 

The first few stanzas of this poem are filled with allusions involving alcohol, Tdrinking, and also drugs. In the first line, Keats says, My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains.” At the start of an Ode to a Nightingale the speaker seems to be initially in a sort of daze and describes it as a heart ache along with a drowsy numbness pain. The way Keats says this reminds me of the way you feel when you lose someone that you are in love with. I would describe this pain as despair with a lack of self-regard or regard for others. After that in the second line the poet writes, My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk. First of all, hemlock is a type of poison made from an herb. Keats compares his daze like feeling to that of person is drugged up on hemlock. This line seems to be a reference to some type of regret towards something. It appears to me that the speaker wishes to forget the bad and perhaps maybe the good of his past in this line. In the second line, Keats uses his first reference to a sedative or drug. The third line of the poem says  and emptied some dull opiate to the drains.”The poet compares his current state to that of consuming opium in this line. This alludes to the poet only being half awake, somewhat vulnerable and less in control than normal. In the fourth line of an Ode to a Nightingale Keats writes One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk.” The Lethe is a river in Hades where souls about to be reincarnated drank from to forget their pasts. This alludes to the way the poet tries to escape his life by drinking wine in line 11 of the second stanza. Keats feels that the only way for him to live a carefree, pleasant life, just like the nightingale  would be to use some sort of druges. 

With the start of the second stanza, the poet wants to be rid of his pain from life and instead live in a world of imagination or fantasy. In line 11 Keats writes for a draught of vintage! That hath been. Keats calls for a glass of vintage in this line, which is more commonly known as wine. He calls for vintage rather than beer because vintage is more romantic and he wishes to experience the qualities associated with fine wines. It appears that he is not in fact asking for a glass, but instead asking for the warm feeling of being content and relaxed. Keats feels that the liquid he drinks will provide inspiration as well as comfort. Also in the second stanza, Keats says in line  one Tasting of Flora and the country green.The word Flora is used here to represent the taste of the vintage. Flora is the goddess of flowers and fertility. From this I concur that the taste of this vintage would have been a very wonderful tasting drink. Line 14 says, Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth. Provincial is a region in southern France associated with song, pleasure, and luxury. France is known for their wine and that is why it is used in this poem to display another allusion to drinking. The use of sunburnt mirth is an excellent example of synesthesia. Dance is associated with song, and together they produce pleasure or mirth. The however is sunburnt because country dances are held outdoors. In line 16 Keats says, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene. Hippocrene is the name of a spring sacred to the muses located on Mt. Helicon where poets became inspired after drinking its waters. Each of the nine muses was associated with different arts including epic poetry  sacred song, and dancing. The last two lines of this stanza say, “That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim.” These two lines  give off the impression that the poet experienced something that hurt him traumatically and does not wish to feel it again. To me this appears to be perhaps about a love of his who left or passed on. These emotions may cause a person to not want to endure the good of the future in order to avoid the bad of their past. The second line of  these two again show the poet’s desire to get away from something and return to a peaceful state. Thus being in the forest would suit his emotional state well causing him to be very peaceful.

The third stanza seems to be like a suicide note because Keats practically says that he desires to forget the past and does not wish to go on living. At the end of the second stanza the word fade is used and it is again used in the beginning of the third stanza. This appears to be a way of to tie the stanzas together, so that it can move easily into the next thought. Line 1 and begin the third verse and read, Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forgot, What thou among the leaves hast never known . At this point, the poet is in deep despair and longs to fade away and forget his troubles. Keats wants to forget the strife of human life and believes that drugs and alcohol are the only answer to this. The poet’s awareness of the real world pulls him back from his fantasy world of drink enjoy Through the first three stanzas in this poem the tone of the speaker is dark and melancholic. I believe that the poem starts like this because in the first three stanzas Keats believes that alcohol and drugs are his only way out. Most alcoholics and drug users seem to be dark, melancholic individuals when not sober. 

With the start of the fourth stanza the tone somewhat lightens becoming almost cheerful. Keats begins this stanza with a return to life and a goal on staying focused within his emotions. He has finally realized that alcohol is not the way to reach the nightingale. The first three lines of the fourth stanza  read Away!   Away!  For I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy. In line the poet rejects wine. There is also a reference to Bacchus, the Roman god of wine who was supposed to have been carried by a chariot pulled by leopards in line . Instead of using alcohol to escape, the speaker says he will escape on the invisible wings of Poesy in line . This is where the bulk of the allusions to alcohol and drugs end because Keats now says he does not need either to escape his problems. 

In “Ode to a Nightingale”, Keats built the poem around a large amount of strategically placed allusions involving alcohol and drug use. Keats used extreme differences throughout the entirety of the poem. His emotions range from dark to light, but he never touches any melancholy ones. The use of drugs and alcohol in the poem seem to make the poem become funny and ironic at the same time when mixed with lines containing sobering experience. Keats may not have meant that he actually wanted wine or something else, but just wanted the association of feeling high and carefree. 

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 Conclusion :-

We can say that  Keats soars high with his wings of poesy into the world of ideas and perfect happiness. But the next moment, consciousness makes him land on the grounds of reality and he bids farewell to the ideal bird. At this moment Keats must also have been conscious that the very bird, which he had idealized and immortalized existed in the real world mortal and vulnerable to change and suffering like himself.

  Workcited :-
 https://www.bachelorandmaster.co/britishandamericanpoetry/ode-to-a-nightingale.html#.
 https://www.shmoop.com/ode-nightingale/themes.html