Journeys are not measured by where the individuals end up but by what they learn along the way. To what extent does your study of the poetry of John Keats and one other related text support this statement? A journey’s significance is determined by how it impacts on the individuals involved, this often results in individuals growing and learning about themselves or their reality whilst undertaking a journey. This undoubtedly has an impact on how an individual’s journey ends. Thus journeys are measured by the culmination of an individual’s growth as demonstrated by where they end up at the conclusion of their journey. John Keats’ works, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ support this idea as the inner journey the persona undergoes …show more content…
‘Ode to a Nightingale’ ends with the question, “fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?” Which is the product of how profoundly the persona’s journey has impacted on his perception of reality, it also serves to leave the meaning of Keats’ poem up to the responder allowing them to determine the truth behind the persona’ inner journey based on what they felt within the poem itself. By doing this, Keats shows that a journey’s significance can only truly be measured when it ends, when the individuals involved have the chance to decide how the journey they have undertaken will impact them. Contrastingly, Hemingway’s ‘Indian Camp’ tells the story of a young boy and his father who travel to an Indian camp to help with the troubled labour of one of the women. The boy’s father says that he “ought to have a look at the proud father. They’re usually the worst sufferers in these…affairs,” before discovering the Indian man’s suicide, foreshadowing both the demise of the Indian man and the boy’s inevitable change in perception because of the event. However, upon leaving in the “just daylight” Nick denies what he has seen to instead rely on the authoritive figure of his father for guidance. He asks, “is dying hard, Daddy?” returning to language reminiscent of a young child, and seemingly satisfied with his father’s vague response, “it all depends.” Nick’s attitude highlights to the audience that he was not mentally prepared to witness the Indian man’s suicide and allows the audience to contemplate on Nick’s behalf on how such an episode will affect him. Nick’s journey ends in such a way that it was inevitable, regardless of how Nick grew and reflects Nick’s inability to comprehend his journey as he accepts the authority of a parental figure rather than questioning his reality as Keats did when faced with death. Thus
Throughout all texts discussed, there is a pervasive and unmistakable sense of journey in its unmeasurable and intangible form. The journeys undertaken, are not physically transformative ones but are journeys which usher in an emotional and spiritual alteration. They are all life changing anomaly’s that alter the course and outlook each individual has on their life. Indeed, through the exploitation of knowledge in both a positive and negative context, the canvassed texts accommodate the notion that journeys bear the greatest magnitude when they change your life in some fashion.
Keats’ poetry explores many issues and themes, accompanied by language and technique that clearly demonstrates the romantic era. His poems ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Bright Star’ examine themes such as mortality and idealism of love. Mortality were common themes that were presented in these poems as Keats’ has used his imagination in order to touch each of the five senses. He also explores the idea that the nightingale’s song allows Keats to travel in a world of beauty. Keats draws from mythology and christianity to further develop these ideas. Keats’ wrote ‘Ode To A Nightingale’ as an immortal bird’s song that enabled him to escape reality and live only to admire the beauty of nature around him. ‘Bright Star’ also discusses the immortal as Keats shows a sense of yearning to be like a star in it’s steadfast abilities. The visual representation reveal these ideas as each image reflects Keats’ obsession with nature and how through this mindset he was able
There are many ways in which a goal or an ideal may influence an individual’s life. It could be the mere feeling of accomplishment, and the outcome of meaning to one’s life, or simply the goals may conclude the sensation of change and retain of wisdom that appeal to individuals. Such an existence can cause the compulsion of never feeling the desire to end the journey and forever aspiring towards new goals. That is what happened to the speaker in the poem “The Layers” written by Stanley Kunitz. In an infinite journey the speaker continues to discover new paths as he looks back on his past, learning from his mistakes, it grants him the st...
A physical journey occurs as a direct result of travelling from one place to another over land, sea or even space. The physical journey can occur individually or collectively, but always involves more than mere movement. Instead physical journeys are accompanied by inner growth and development, catalysed by the experiences and the decisions that impact the outcome of the journey. These journey concepts and the interrelationship between physical and emotional journeys is exemplified in the text; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, the children’s book Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and the film Stand By Me directed by Rob Reiner.
John Keats’s illness caused him to write about his unfulfillment as a writer. In an analysis of Keats’s works, Cody Brotter states that Keats’s poems are “conscious of itself as the poem[s] of a poet.” The poems are written in the context of Keats tragically short and painful life. In his ...
These timeless tales relate a message that readers throughout the ages can understand and relate to. While each of these tales is not exactly alike, they do share a common core of events. Some event and or character flaw necessitates a journey of some kind, whether it is an actual physical journey or a metaphorical one. The hardships and obstacles encountered on said journey lead to spiritual growth and build character. Rarely does a person find himself unchanged once the journey is over.
The poem is launched by a protracted introduction during which the speaker indulges in descriptions of landscape and local color, deferring until the fifth stanza the substantive statement regarding what is happening to whom: "a bus journeys west." This initial postponement and the leisurely accumulation of apparently trivial but realistic detail contribute to the atmospheric build-up heralding the unique occurrence of the journey. That event will take place as late as the middle of the twenty-second stanza, in the last third of the text. It is only in retrospect that one realizes the full import of that happening, and it is only with the last line of the final stanza that the reader gains the necessary distance to grasp entirely the functional role of the earlier descriptive parts.
In Keats “Ode to a Nightingale” we see the sense embodied through a variety of different literary techniques and in particular his use of synaesthesia imagery. The dejected downhearted nature of the poem promotes emotion in the reader even before noting poetic devices at work. The structure of the meter is regular and adds to the depth of this poe...
Arguably one of John Keats’ most famous poems, “Ode to a nightingale” in and of itself is an allegory on the frail, conflicting aspects of life while also standing as a commentary on the want to escape life’s problems and the unavoidability of death. Keats’ poem utilizes a heavy amount of symbolism, simile and allusion to idealize nature as a perfect, almost mystical, world that holds no problems while using imagery taken from nature, combined with alliteration and assonance, to idealize the dream of escape from the problems life often presents; more specifically, aging and our inevitable deaths by allowing the reader to feel as if they are experiencing the speaker’s experience listening to the nightingale.
Time is an ever constant moving aspect of life. It can build one up and tear one down
Keats presents a stark contrast between the real and the surreal by examining the power of dreams. For the narrators of each work, dream works as a gateway to the unconscious, or rather, a more surreal and natural state of mind. Keats presents the world as a place where one cannot escape from his/her troubles. For the narrator in “Ode to a Nightingale” he attempts to artificially medicate himself as a means of forgetting about the troubles of the real world which cause him to feel a “drowsy numbness” (Ode to a Nightingale 1) which “pains / My senses, as though of hemlock I had drunk,” (1-2). The narrator, seemingly in search for both inspiration and relief, drowns out these feelings through an overindulgence in wine as a way to “leave
“The Road Not Taken” examines the struggles people run into when they come to a place in their life where a life altering decisions has to be made. The man who is described in this poem is traveling when he comes upon “two roads diverged” (1). He then has to choose which path he will take to continue on his journey. After standing at the diversion for a while, he knows he has to make a final decision. One path was worn down and “bent in the undergrowth” (5), so he took the other path, which was described as “perhaps the better claim/ Because it was grassy and wanted wear” (6-7). The man of the poem begins to ponder about a time when he will be telling his story of the path he took. Although we are not sure if the man regrets his decision or is relieved, he lets us know taking the road less traveled “has made all the difference” (20).
John Keats was one of the greatest poets of the Romantic Era. He wrote poetry of great sensual beauty and had a unique passion for details. In his lifetime he was not recognized with the senior poets. He didn’t receive the respect he deserved. He didn’t fit into the respected group because of his age, nor in the younger group because he was neither a lord nor in the upper class. He was in the middle class and at that time people were treated differently because of their social status.
John Keats ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ is one of the most enduring, timeless, romantic poems of 1819. It defines ‘romanticism’ not just in the literary sense, but in a modern sense filled with passion, imagination and individuality. I will examine how the idea of romanticism is portrayed through the beauty of art and nature, in contrast with the writer’s perspective on romanticism as a melancholic emotion. Furthermore, as Keats wrote the poem during his last few years on this Earth-whilst he was ill- it is said that he felt “like a living ghost”, so it is not surprising that the poem speaker is obsessed with the ideas of immortality, survival and death which I will be further examining in relation to the poem.
Keats is one of the greatest lovers and admirers of nature. In his poetry, we come across exquisitely beautiful descriptions of the wonder sigts and senses of nature. He looks with child-like delight at the objects of nature and his whole being is thrilled by what he sees and hears. Everything in nature for him is full of wonder and mystery - the rising sun, the moving cloud, the growing bud and the swimming fish.