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Critical analysis of john keats ode to a nightingale
Critical analysis of john keats ode to a nightingale
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John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale
As a poem, distinguished by a beauty that contrasts "real melancholy" with "imaginary relief" (Wullschlager, 4, quoting Leigh Hunt), Ode to a Nightingale was written at a time in his life when Keats found himself caught at the junction between two worlds. Published in the spring of 1819 (May, 1819), Keats' poem is written soon after a previous December that marked both the death of his brother Thomas Keats and an engagement to Fanny Browne. Struggling between "imaginative escape" and "human limitation" (Sperry, 264), Ode to a Nightingale pits tensions echoed in Keats' personal life. These are tensions that reflect a universal dichotomy of human experience in mortality and the sublime. Similarly, Keats' love for Fanny Browne is interrupted by the death of his much beloved brother, a tragedy that inevitably influences his later Odes. In conclusion, for all its struggles as a poem, Ode to a Nightingale experienced a relatively easy and smooth publication history, released only one month (July 1819) after its original transcription. In its effortless publication, the poem may truly be the full expression of human experience (Wullshlager, 4) that it professes to be.
In a journal-letter written to his brother and sister in America dated 1818-1819, Keats writes, "The last days of poor Tom were of the most distressing nature; but his last moment were not so painful, and his very last was without a pang", he continues later on to say, "I have a firm belief in immortality, and so had Tom." (Milnes, 164-65) Obviously distraught and heart-broken by the passing of his brother, Keats ironically later writes in his Ode to a Nightingale, "That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,/ And with thee fade ...
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5. Sperry, Stuart M.; Keats The Poet; © 1973 Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
6. Ward, Allen; John Keats: The Making of a Poet; ©1963 The Viking Press Inc.: New York.
7. Marquess, William Henry; Lives of the Poet: The First Century of Keats Biography; © 1985 The Pennsylvania State University Press: University Park and London.
8. Brown, Charles Armitage; Life of John Keats; ©1937 Oxford University Press: London, New York, Toronto.
9. .John Keats-Biography and Works; http://www.online-literature.com/keats/
10. Wullschlager, Anne; John Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale”: An Easy PublicationforaDifficultEnd; http://www.clayfox.com/ashessparks/reports/anne.html
11. Milnes, Richard Monckton; Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats.; © 1848 Leavitt, Trow & Co., Printers: 49 Ann-Street, George P. Putnam: New-York.
Baron, forlorn in the loss of his Madeline. Does Keats merely make tribute to this classic idea of
Book one begins with infancy and childhood. Augustine the character’s first form of education began when he learned to talk. In chapter eight, Augustine the narrator discusses his transformation from infancy to childhood: from not knowing language to turning into a “chattering boy” (Bk. 1, Ch. 8, pg. 9). Augustine the narrator also points out that he did not learn to speak through a formal education, such as in school. Instead, he learned to speak and communicate through “varies cries and sounds and movements of my limbs to express my heart’s feelings, so that my will would be obeyed” (Bk. 1, Ch. 8, pg. 9). Through his acquisition of speech, Augustine the character was able to enter in society and be formally educated.
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
Did you know that in 2011 there were more than 6 million tobacco caused deaths worldwide (Henningfield)? Smoking is the act of inhaling and exhaling the fumes of burning plant material. Because there is nicotine in cigarettes, they are highly addictive. Cigarettes are one of the worlds most devastating causes of death and disease (Henningfield). There are many negative effects from secondhand smoking, both immediately and over time. Smoking also affects the environment indoors negatively. Also, when pregnant woman or parents of young children smoke, they could harm their children. People should not smoke with others around because they are exposed to harmful chemicals and they are not the one putting themselves in danger.
assume that hookah is better is because it is available in numerous flavors and it is often portrayed as a social activity.
cheap and easy method of providing tobacco users a manageable product soon led to widespread use in the western world. This attitude soon began to change, however, as researchers began publishing reports on the ill effects of smoking and tobacco use.
Throughout Keats’s work, there are clear connections between the effect of the senses on emotion. Keats tends to apply synesthetic to his analogies with the interactions with man and the world to create different views and understandings. By doing this, Keats can arouse different emotions to the work by which he intends for the reader to determine on their own, based on how they perceive it. This is most notable in Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, for example, “Tasting of Flora, and Country Green” (827). Keats accentuates emotion also through his relationship with poetry, and death.
There are so many tobacco flavors to choose from that are more pleasing than that of a cigarette. Also, smoke sessions with hookah last anywhere from 2 to 3 hours versus the few minutes with a cigarette. Another reason for his phenomenon is its “particularly appealing to younger college students under the legal drinking age who wish to socialize and/or smoke” (Baheiraei et al, 2015, p 2752). As long as you are the legal age of 18 years old, you can frequent a hookah lounge. However, more importantly I believe this behavior exists because of its communal experience that everyone is able to enjoy. I also feel that there is much weight placed on the fact that many people don’t find hookah smoking harmful compared to cigarettes, although they may have the same toxins. In a research completed to see why hookah smoking was so appealing, it was founded that “in the data suggested Millennial hookah users had commonly held beliefs that hookah use was non-addictive” (Castañeda et al, 2016). Also, there are so many experiences that involve hookah smoking such as “the hookah pipe preparation process to mixing flavors and performing smoke tricks” (Castañeda et al, 2016) which makes it an exciting
Not only that, people who smoke hookah are more likely to inhale more smoke than those who smoke cigarettes because hookah sessions often last longer than smoking cigarettes. The CDC states “Although many users think it is less harmful, hookah smoking has many of the same health risks as cigarette smoking (Dangers of Smoking Hookah).” Many people believe that since the smoke from hookah is filtered through water that it filters out the harmful chemicals but that actually not true. The charcoal that is used during hookah to heat up the tobacco produces high levels of metals, carbon monoxide and various cancer-causing chemicals. And just like cigarettes or e-cigarettes, smoking hookah can also lead to heart disease, various cancers, and lower
Keats, John. John Keats – The Major Works. Ed. Elizabeth Cook. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Society of all ages are drowning in tar like substances many call cigarettes. According to the U.S. national library of medicine the cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilization. Cigarettes have been affecting all of society since the early 1500’s. (Proctor, 2013) Even though cigarettes take the edge off from reality; cigarettes are destructive to the smoker and peers surrounding because cigarettes are filled with harmful chemicals, expensive and are highly addictive.
Finneran, Richard J. The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. 2nd ed. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1996.
The casual reader of John Keats' poetry would most certainly be impressed by the exquisite and abundant detail of it's verse, the perpetual freshness of it's phrase and the extraordinarily rich sensory images scattered throughout it's lines. But, without a deeper, more intense reading of his poems as mere parts of a larger whole, the reader may miss specific themes and ideals which are not as readily apparent as are the obvious stylistic hallmarks. Through Keats' eyes, the world is a place full of idealistic beauty, both artistic and natural, who's inherent immortality, is to him a constant reminder of that man is irrevocably subject to decay and death. This theme is one which dominates a large portion of his late poetry and is most readily apparent in three of his most famous Odes: To a Nightingale, To Autumn and on a Grecian Urn. In the Ode to a Nightingale, it is the ideal beauty of the Nightingale's song - as permanent as nature itself - in the Ode on a Grecian Urn, it is the perfection of beauty as art transfixed and transfigured forever in the Grecian Urn - and in the Ode to Autumn it is the exquisiteness of the season idealised and immortalised as part of the natural cycle - which symbolise eternal and idealistic images of profound beauty.
Keats' ode begins with his feeling drowsy, lethargic and sad, as if he were under the influence of a drug. In the background of his mind he hears the nightingale "In some melodious plot" (1.8) singing joyfully. The first stanza seems to be the beginning of an awakening. The poet is lost in his own world, in a drugged state, where the only sound allowed to enter is the bird's song. Alone in a saddened state a person can feel isolated and withdraw from others. In the first part of this stanza Keats conveys this solitary depression, where the mind is so overwhelmed with preoccupation that the outside world cannot intrude. This is similar to someone being told devastating news and that person walks about in a daze, even to the point of walking into traffic without realizing it.
“Ode to a Nightingale”, is more of a poem of feeling than one of concrete thought. As is usually the case in “Negative Capability”, this poem surrounds the reader with feeling of uncertainty and a constant wonder of what is and what isn’t. When Keats concludes this poem, the speaker and the reader are both left wondering whether this poem or, life for that matter, is a dream. There are no definitive answers and Keats embraces the nightingale’s beauty on an unconscious level. Thus, the reader can see that in order for Keats to create true poetry, he maintains in a constant state of internal conflict, never reaching for facts or reasons, producing poetry consistent with his identity as a poet of “Negative Capability”.