Biographical sketch of Johan
Keats
Keats belonged to the 2nd generation of Romantic poets made
of Keats, Shelley and Byron; the 1st was made of Wordsworth and
Coleridge. He was born in Moorgate, London in 1795 and died in Italy in1821 at the
age of 25 from tuberculosis.
His private life was full of sadness for two main reasons: death of his
brother Tom from TB and his unsuccessful love affair with Fanny Browne. Transience
of life was an issue that worried him from the very beginning. After meeting
Leigh Hunt, an editor and a close friend of Shelley and Byron, Keats was
encouraged to write poetry. At the age of 21 he produced his first great poem.
In 1819, from January to September Keats produced a set of odes which has ensured
his immortality:
1.
Ode to
Autumn
2.
Ode to a
Nightingale
3.
Ode on a
Grecian Urn
4.
Ode to
Psyche
5.
Ode to
Melancholy
6.
Ode to
Indolence
Ode to a Nightingale – John Keats
An autobiographical
poem composed while Keats was dying of tuberculosis. Three things stand out in
the odd:
1.
Keats’ evaluation of life –
life is full of tears and frustrations in contrasts the joyous immortality of
the nightingale
2.
Keats’ wishes that he could die
and be rid of the physical body that gives him so much pain both physically and
emotionally. Keats was a very active sensuous man in his prime and to be so
helpless all of a sudden and to be reminded daily of his mortality would have
been a terrible experience. On top of that, the idea that he had not so far written
anything that would ensure the continuation of his memory after his death would
have saddened him.
3.
The power of imagination. He
wishes to escape the pain and mortality of his existence by flying away with
the bird and be one with ‘viewless wings’ of poetry.
Form
o
Ten-line
verse of varying meter
o
Rhyming
scheme – ababcdcde
Background
The poem was written in 1819 when Keats was ill. At that time he was
living with a friend in Hampton. It is said that in April, a nightingale had
built a nest in the garden and Keats heard the nightingale as he sat in the
garden one evening making “Ode to a Nightingale” an autobiographical poem. Consequently,
the speaker on the poem and the poet are to be taken as one and the same.
‘Romantic’ qualities in the poem
o
Privileging
of the power of imagination
o
The poet
expresses intense feelings – of joy, fear, and loss
o
The poet delights
in natural beauty
o
Keats uses
wide a range of auditory, tactile, visual, and olfactory images
o
Use of natural
imagery
o
The poet
builds a close association between natural beauty and poetic inspiration
o
Human
conflicts/problems are understood in relation to nature
o
The poet
undertakes a journey of self-discovery in the course of the poem
o
Keats
attempts to find meaning of life, art and salvation in poetry
o
The poem
is also about how imagination affects the person who imadines.
Themes
o
The
contrast between the ideal and the real
o
Memory and
forgetting
o
Mortality:
o
Awareness of
the poet’s own sickness and mortality vs. beauty and immortality of the bird’s
song
o
The
conflict between the need to experience passionate feelings and the yearning to
escape
o
Awareness
of pain and suffering Vs. joy brought by the bird’s song – the idea that human
joy and pain are inextricably linked, one giving meaning to the other
o
Yearning
for happiness and meaning for life through poetry
Analysis
With “Ode to a
Nightingale,” Keats’s speaker begins his fullest and deepest exploration of the
themes of creative expression/art and the transience/mortality of human life. In
this ode, the transience of all forms of life –“where palsy shakes a few, sad,
last gray hairs, / Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies” – is set
against the nightingale’s eternal song: “Thou wast not born for death, immortal
bird”.
The
form:
An ode is “a short
lyric poem that praises an individual, an idea, or an event. In ancient Greece,
odes were originally accompanied by music—in fact, the word “ode” comes from
the Greek word aeidein, which means to sing or to chant.”
The title:
The ode here is to “a”
nightingale – signaling that the nightingale was one that he had never encountered.
Nightingales have a lot of mythical associations. They are also known for their
beautiful songs and elusive nature.
SI
My heart aches, and a drowsy
numbness pains
My
sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to
the drains
One
minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
Looking at the other poems dealing with similar
contents that are in the Advanced Level syllabus, in “Sonnet 141” Shakespearean
poetic persona is in despair over his reason losing the battle with his heart.
In it, senses feed the poetic persona’s reason and warn him against the
unsuitability of the woman he is attracted to. The poet feels that he is no
longer a man as he is dominated by his heart.
Keats on the
other hand feels no shame over privileging his heart and emotions. In this poem
the speaker opens the ode with two problems he is suffering from: his heart is
aching and his senses are numb. The 3 commas used in this section hint at pauses
– maybe due to his sickness or his contemplative mood. The numbing of the
senses is a tragedy for a poet, especially a Romantic poet who relied heavily
on his senses and privileges heart over reason. Keats offers two similes in order to illustrate the drowsy
numbness that pains his senses: “as though of hemlock
I had drunk,/ Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains/ One minute past, and
Lethe-wards had sunk”.
Keats is conscious of moving towards Lethe-wards,
death and oblivion, minute by minute. Hemlock is notorious as the poison that
was used to kill Socrates. It is said that a person who drank hemlock would
feel a progressive sense of numbness which begins at the extremities. Lethe is
a river mentioned in Greek myths. It marked a boundary between the land of the
living and the dead. Once one drank water from the river, one forgot everything
about his life on earth. When an opiate is injected into one’s drains/ veins,
one dies and forgets everything.
Forgetfulness and death may have its benefits in
the form of relief from troubling thoughts, but the poetic persona would also
forgets everything else as well and become a faint shadow described in
horrifying details in The Odyssey. The
long vowel sounds used liberally in this section indicates sluggishness. At
this point, the poetic persona addresses the nightingale directly (apostrophe) and
tells the bird the reason for the pain he is experiencing:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But
being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In
some melodious plot
Of
beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
A Dryad is a wood nymph – a magical being. By
calling the nightingale a “Dryad” the poet allocates magical powers and
immortality to the bird. The use of the old fashioned honourific terms such as
“thy”, “thine” and “thou” to refer to the nightingale further cements the sense
of respect the poet is awarding he bird. They mark the distance between the
immortal bird and the mortal poet who is dying at the moment. He is addressing
a nightingale – a “light-winged Dryad of the trees” - he hears singing
somewhere in the forest and says that he is not envious of the nightingale’s
happiness. In fact, he is all too happy to visualize the bird singing “in
full-throated ease” in some hidden place in the shadowy depth of a beach
forest. Through that statement Keats displays a superhuman sense of generosity
of spirit. The feeling of heaviness that weighs both his body and spirit down
as opposed to the lightness of the bird must have been painful for the poetic
persona.
In this section the poet creates euphony through
the use of shorter vowel sounds and the frequent use of /s/ , /l/, /r/, etc. to
illustrate the beauty of the song and the existence of the bird.
Summer is the season of plentitude and
rejuvenation – yet the poet is being constantly reminded of his mortality. Here,
the poet has juxtaposed the vitality of the bird as an artist and a living
being as opposed to the vanning vitality of the Keats as an artist and a man.
SII
My heart aches, and a drowsy
numbness pains
My
sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to
the drains
One
minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy
happy lot,
But
being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In
some melodious plot
Of
beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
In the second stanza, overwhelmed by the pain of
a dying body and dulling faculties, the poet is yearning “for a drought of
vintage” or “for a beaker full of the warm South”. At this point the poet hungers
for fresh inspirations so that he could leave a legacy in poetry behind him. In
that context the yearning for wine is significant as in Greko-Roman mythology –
something Keats was heavily influenced by – Baccus/Dionysus, the god of wine
was also the god of poetry.
Interestingly, it is one particular type of wine
the poet yearns for: it should be “Cool’d a long age
in the deep-delved earth,/ Tasting of Flora and the country green,/ Dance, and
Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!” – all the images used here are
pastoral in keeping with the Romantic Tradition. The poet creates a visual,
tactile cum gustatory image of a cool glass of wine which would be a welcome
relief in his feverish state.
Next, he yearns for beaker full of warm south. The
longing is once again highlighted by the use of “O” at the beginning of the
line as in the first line of the stanza. He wishes that he could drink the
salubriousness of the South that would restore his health. The warm south
should contain “true” –genuine – shy- elusive/red wine which the poet calls
Hippocrene – a stream sacred to the seven Muses of the Greek mythology. This,
as in the earlier occasion, could be a latent yearning for more poetic
inspiration in the dying poet in order the leave a legacy of poetry
behind.
The beakerful of sparkling wine is graphically described
– “With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,” - the
drinking of which would leave a “purple-stained mouth”. The mouth could
be purple stained due to the colour of the wine or in death. He yearns to leave
the trials and tribulations of his condition and be one with the bird. This
yearning is an example of a quality critics see in Keats which they call
Negative Capability.
Compared to the fast moving shorter vowel sounds
in the first 8 lines of the poem indicating vigor bestowed upon him by the
drinks, the longer vowel sounds in the last two lines indicate his true state
and his longing to be free of pain both physical and psychological.
SIII
Fade far away, dissolve, and
quite forget
What
thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and
the fret
Here,
where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad,
last gray hairs,
Where
youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And
leaden-eyed despairs,
Where
Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
The third stanza is a continuation of the thought
process begun in the 2nd. The poet uses enjambment in this section
to mark the continuation. The poetic persona expresses a desire “to fade away,
dissolve, and quite forget” “[t]he weariness, the fever, and the fret” which
the bird, according to him, “hast never known”.
The use of commas once again marks the tiredness
and the mood of the poet. “The weariness, the fever, and the fret” is not
limited to him; all around him “men sit and hear each other groan”. Death is
not a timely thing: “youth grows pale, and
spectre-thin, and dies”. Under such circumstances thinking brings
nothing but “sorrow/And leaden-eyed despairs”.
Through the repetition of the term “where” – an instance of the usage of
anaphora – the poet stresses the miserable nature of the place he is in as
opposed to the “melodious plot” occupied by the bird. At this point the poet is
extremely sensitive to the transient nature of human life as opposed to the
immortality of art – the nightingale is a metaphor for art/poetry. Beauty
and love are personified by the poet. Compared to the immortality of
poetry/art, even beauty and love are short-lived.
SIV
Away! away! for I will fly to
thee,
Not
charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of
Poesy,
Though
the dull brain perplexes and retards:
In the fourth stanza,
the speaker tells the nightingale to fly away – the technique used here is
apostrophe. The repetition of “Away” and the use of the exclamation mark a
change of thought and a sense of urgency in the poet. Now, instead of seeking
to be one with the bird with the aid of a “draught of vintage” and a “beaker
full of Warm South”, he turns to another course. He says, “I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy”. Bacchus is another name of
Dionysus, in a more ecstatic form. The poet rejects being one with the bird under
the influence of Bacchus whose followers were known for violence and
orgies.
Instead, he chooses the gentle “viewless wings of
Poesy” as the mode of transport to get to the bird in spite of the fact his
“dull brain perplexes and retards”. He says he is already with the nightingale
and describes the forest glade, where even the moonlight is hidden by the
trees, except the light that breaks through when the breeze moves the branches.
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And
haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But
here there is no light,
Save
what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
The poet
feels that he had reached the bird astride the wings of poesy – through this
poem. As a result, the night becomes a thing of beauty: “Tender is the night[i],”
he says. The poet anticipates what he would see on his way to be with the bird.
Up in the sky “the Queen-Moon is on her throne,/ Cluster'd
around by all her starry Fays.” However, there is no
light within the beechen green except the patches of light that filter through
the thick canopy of leaves as it is moved by the wind.
SV
I cannot see what flowers are
at my feet,
Nor
what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness,
guess each sweet
Wherewith
the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the
fruit-tree wild;
White
hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And
mid-May's eldest child,
The
coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Typical to Romantic poetry, Keats is immersed in
nature in this stanza. Keats imagines that is travelling on foot through the
dark beechen forest in the trail of the elusive nightingale. At this point he
seemed to have forgotten that he had set out on the “viewless wings of Poesy”. The
forest is so dark that he cannot see the flowers at his feet but he can guess
what they were even “in embalmed darkness” by their smell – for he has a
knowledge of the different smells “the seasonable month endows” the “grass, the
thicket, and the fruit-tree wild”. In each month of each season different trees
come into bloom, so by smelling the flower one can guess which tree it is in
the fragrant darkness given one is in tune with nature. Through this Keats suggests
to his reader some of the benefits of being one with nature.
Each flower the poet names has a connotation in
the context of the poem: The white hawthorn “is a pagan symbol of fertility and
has ancient associations with May Day. It was the ancestor of the Maypole.
Hawthorn leaves and flowers are the source of May Day garlands as well as the
wreath of the Green Man. It was believed that bringing hawthorn blossom inside
would be followed by illness and death, and in the Medieval times it was said
that hawthorn blossom smelled like the Great Plague. Botanists later learned
that the chemical trimethylamine in hawthorn blossom is also one of the first
chemicals formed in decaying animal tissue, so it is not surprising that
hawthorn flowers are associated with death.”
Similarly, eglantine, violets and musk-rose too
are summer flowers, “murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves,” which have their
own connotational and denotational significance within the context of the main
theme of transience of life. The poet uses alliteration and onomatopoeia to
create auditory images of the summer.
The stanza is an example of Keats’ mastery over images through which he
creates a veritable repast for the five senses.
SVI
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I
have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a
mused rhyme,
To
take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To
cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In
such an ecstasy!
Still
wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
In the sixth stanza, the poetic persona addresses the bird as “Darkling” and
tells her that he is listening to her song. The use of the present simple for
the short clause may be an implication of the Romantic characteristic of being
attentive to nature – its sounds, smells, tastes and feelings. The term little
dark being contains both a sense affection as well as closeness which is devoid
in Dryad which was absent in the mythical term “Dryad” or the generic term
“Bird”. He says to the nightingale that he has often been “half in love” with
the idea of dying as it would give him ease from the constant suffering he is
undergoing. He, like a priest that
worshiped death, had invoked personified Death “soft names in many mused
rhymes” (apostrophe) and asked it to “take into the air” his “quiet breat”. The
use of “quiet” implies Keats’s assurance that he would not put up any
resistance should Death deign to comply with his request.
Immersed in the beauty of the nightingale’s song,
the poetic persona thinks that there cannot be a better time to die: “Now more
than ever seems it rich to die,” he says as it would allow him to “cease upon
the midnight with no pain” while the nightingale was “pouring forth” its “soul
abroad/ In such an ecstasy”. With the use of the term “pouring” the poet
invites the reader to think of the bird as a vessel that pours out its soul –
its joyful qualities – in ecstasy. The poet’s own amazement and joy at the
experience is marked by the use of the exclamation at the end of the line. Similarly,
the use of hyphen at the end of the penultimate line, an example of the use of
aposiopesis, suggests the very act of listening and the possibility of the
poetic persona being at a loss for words to express his feelings as well as. The
poet realizes that if he were to die, the nightingale would continue to sing,
but he would “have ears in vain” for he would no longer be able to hear as his
ears would have turned to sod by then. The suggestion that only his faculty of
hearing would be affected by death is an example of the use of synecdoche, a
type of understatement or euphemism, which hints at Keats’ fear of what
succeeds death, being forgotten - an idea he explores more fully in “Ode on a
Grecian Urn” as well:
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 (from “Ode on a Grecian Urn”)
In “Ode to a Nightingale” the use of the term “requiem” suggests
that Keats imagines the bird would sing a song to mark its sorrow over his
passing. He would attempt to listen to requiem sung in his memory by the bird;
however, he would not be able to hear the requiem as his ears would have been
turned to “sod” by then. Here, the poet hints at a truth: human life maybe full
of suffering; still, it is only as we exist in our human form here on earth we
would be able to enjoy things of beauty. The same idea is further dealt with in
“Ode on a Grecian Urn”. The use of the term “requiem” could also be read as a
tacit appeal to his fellow poets, the human nightingales, to honour his memory
by acknowledging his presence here on earth so that he would not be forgotten.
SVII
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No
hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In
ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through
the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The
same that oft-times hath
Charm'd
magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
In the seventh stanza, the poetic persona further
elaborates on two of the greatest human fears: mortality and being forgotten. He
once again addresses the bird directly and assures it of its immortality in
both years and of fame. Through the use of litotes, the poet introduces a
contrast between the mortal poet and the immortal bird – thus he creates profound
sense pathos for a young talented poet dying at the very height of his poetic
capabilities. The nightingale’s song is art accessible to everyone irrespective
of differences. “[H]ungry generations” are people who crave novelty. In order
to satisfy their craving for novelty they move on from one source of
gratification to the next fast. Here, the poet is alluding to his fear of being
forgotten after his work has ceased to be a source of novel pleasure.
In contrast, he says that the voice he hears
singing has always been there –it is eternal and immortal. The nightingale
sings the same song:
The voice I hear this
passing night was heard
In
ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song
that found a path
Through
the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The
same that oft-times hath
Charm'd
magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn
It has been heard by ancient emperors and clowns
– the two ends of the sociopolitical spectrum; by homesick Ruth – a character
that appears in the Old Testament and even the fairies - the song has often
charmed open magic windows looking out over “the foam / Of perilous seas, in
faery lands forlorn” – once opened by the power of the nightingale’s song, the
magical windows overlook dangerous foam tossed seas in the faraway fairy land. However,
the reaction the listener has to the song differs according to his or state of
mind – it could offer adventure (emperor), entertainment (clown), consolation
(Ruth), or freedom (the fairies behind the magically shut windows). Hence, the
song exists in a perpetual present making it eternal. The song of the
nightingale a timeless universal quality that transcends time and space. The
“hungry generations” have no influence over it. It is this realization that
compels Keats to embrace Poesy’s “viewless wings” to express himself to the
outside world. When juxtaposed with that timelessness of the bird’s song, the
shortness of the span of time Keats gets to sing his own song stands out in
stark contrast.
SVIII
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To
toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As
she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past
the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In
the next valley-glades:
Was
it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
In the eighth stanza, the word “Forlorn” shatters
the spell the song of the nightingale has cast on the poet. The word “toll”
acts like a bell in keeping with the references to death in the previous stanza
and reminds the poet of the unpleasant truth that he is on his own. As the
nightingale flies farther away from him, he bids it “Adieu!” The references to
various places along the way, telescopes the distance covered by the bird.
However, the poet does not attempt to join the bird either imbibed or astride
the viewless wings of poesy. The reason is the realization that his imagination
is not up to that task: “the fancy cannot cheat so well/As she is fam'd to do”.
There is a resigned chiding note in the reference to “fancy” as “deceiving
elf”. He laments that fancy (his imagination) is not as powerful as it was it
was “fam’d” to be. Here, the poet seems to be referring to his earlier resolution
to fly to the bird astride the viewless wings of poesy in the previous stanza. In
his weakened state he is unable to sustain the “fancy” of himself following the
bird.
Once again he bids farewell to the bird: “Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades”. The repetition of the term “adieu” adds a note of finality and
sadness to the poem. The poetic persona is bidding farewell to maybe the very
last thing that would fill him with true happiness. In response, the once
joyous song of the nightingale becomes “plaintive” and then fades away as the
bird moves farther and farther away. Here, by using the term “plaintive” to
describe the song, the poet might be projecting some of his own feeling of
great loss to the song as well. In the
end he says he can no longer recall whether the nightingale’s music was “a
vision, or a waking dream.”
In the last line the poet evaluates Keats
experience. He wonders whether it was a vision or a day dream. A vision is
significant to a Romantic – a vision[ii] is
a divine message whereas a day dream is of little importance.
The music has finally faded away completely. The
poem end with a loaded rhetorical question: “Do I wake or sleep?” The poet
wonders whether he should wake up to the ugly reality of the world or continue
to sleep – maintain illusion. The poem end with the poet still irresolute/
undecided.
Techniques
o
Language is Formal and decorous befitting an
ode
o
Synthesia
– a poetic device used by Keats to combine different senses in one phrase – “sunburnt
mirth”, “blissful Hippcrene” …
o
Alliteration
– deep –delved, fever and the fret
o
Assonance
– beechen green
o
Onomatopoeia
– murmurous haunt
o
Personification
– happy the queen Moon, Beauty, death
o
The nightingale
is a symbol of joy and desire to escape the world of suffering
o
Images
from nature, summer, the woods, the night sky, the country side
o
Allusion –
to classical mythology – Hippocrene, Baccus and his pards; reference to the
Bible – Ruth
o
Tone – a
melancholic tone filled with changing moods and poetic imagination
Questions:
1. Keats’ poetry is a celebration of human
imaginative power. Explore your response to this view by examining Keats’
presentation of imagination in “Ode to a Nightingale.”
2. It has been observed by critics that in his
poetry Keats takes the reader to the limits of human experience. Discuss.
[i] This phrase has been
used as the title of one of his novels by F Scott Fitzgerald.
[ii] William Blake places
visions as the inspiration for much of his work. In poems like “Daffodils”,
William Wordsworth, too, highlights the importance of visions.
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