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When talking about poetry and Romanticism, one of the most common names that come to mind is John Keats. Keats’ lifestyle was somewhat different from his contemporaries and did not fit the Romantic era framework, this is most likely the reason he stood out from the rest. Keats wrote many poems that are still relevant, amongst them Ode to a Nightingale, which was published for the very first time in July, 1819. The realistic depth and lyrical beauty that resonates in Ode to a Nightingale is astounding. Though, his career was rather short, Keats expressed a deep yearning to rise above misery and celebrate life via his consciousness and imagination. Themes of life and death play out in a number of his poems. This essay seeks to discuss Keats’s representation of mortality and immortality, specifically in his poem Ode to a Nightingale.
Before discussing the poem in great detail, it is significant to look at how this ode came to be. While living with a friend in Hampstead during the first months of 1819, a nightingale built a nest in the garden. Keats felt a connection to the bird’s joyous moments each time it sung. It is then that the poet decided to compose a poem expressing his feelings regarding the nightingale’s song (Stillinger 34-5). There are three other odes that follow on the same themes and imagination.
Romantic poets were drawn to lyric poetry. Keats, along with other Romantic writers, is known to have revived the art of writing odes. An ode is an Ancient Greek song that is usually written to praise the subject and is performed at formal occasions. Ode to a Nightingale is a Horatian ode and exhibits the consistent stanza length and meter of this specific type. The poem has eight separate stanzas of ten lines each, and t...
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Works Cited
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Cook, Elizabeth. John Keats. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Print.
"John Keats." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014.
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Roe, Nicholas. John Keats and the Culture of Dissent. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Print.
Scott, Heidi. "Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale." Explicator, 63(3) (2005): 139-141. Print.
Stillinger, Jack. "The “story” of Keats. ." Wolfson, S. J. The Cambridge Companion to Keats . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 246-260. Print.
White, Keith D. and John Keats. John Keats and the Loss of Romantic Innocence, Volume 107. Rodopi, 1996. Print.
Keats, John. “The Eve of St. Agnes”. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic
Ezra Jack Keats: A Virtual Exhibit. The University of Southern Mississippi De Grummond Children's Literature Collection. Web. 19 July 2010. .
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 ...
The tales were rediscovered around 1880 inspiring the Irish literary revival in romantic fiction by writers such as Lady Augusta Gregory and the poetry and dramatic works of W.B. Yeats. These works wer...
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
White, Keith D. John Keats And The Loss Of Romantic Innocence.(Costerus NS 107). Minneapolis: Rodopi BV Editions, 1996. Print.
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.
Imagery and symbolism merged to express his imagination, he became a unique poet in an evolving world where Romanticism was quickly expanding globally, not into a movement, but a way of thinking. Keats’ mother and brother, and eventually he too, passed away of tuberculosis. At the time of his brother 's passing, he developed ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’. ‘La Belle’ expressed Keats’ intellect and creativity, although at the same time he himself expressed his angst and depression for the loss of his brother. His poem ‘Bright Star’ was written in a part of his life in which a woman had influenced Keats’ greatly, so much in fact that he was driven to write ‘Bright Star’ in appreciation and celebration of the love of his life. These poems reflect Keats’ intellect, originality, creativity, and his ability to merge the contextual aspects of his life and his imagination with the ideals and concepts of Romanticism to create powerful
However, underneath the surface, Keats has finally begun to accept the difficult truth that death is inevitable. Through the poem “To Autumn”, Keats urges humankind to accept death as a natural part of human life and to recognize the beauty in death. The first stanza is crowded with sensual and concrete images of nature and its ripeness during the first stages of Autumn. Autumn is characterized as a “season of…mellow fruitfulness” (1).
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...
From the very title we find that this “Ode” is different. It is the “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” as opposed to “Ode to a Nightingale,” or “Ode to Psyche.” The word “on” provides a little more interpretive flexibility. On one hand, the word on can be taken to mean “about” or “concerning,” suggesting that this is an ode about a Grecian Urn. This is in fact true. However, it can also suggest that this ode is taking place quite literally on the Grecian Urn—the ode itself would therefore not be Keats’ own poetry, but the actual Urn. This interpretation is backed up by in Stanza I. when Keats calls the Urn “Sylvan historian, who canst thus express / A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme” (lines 3-4). The urn can express the tale more sweetly because it presents the ode without the passage of time. Thus all the paintings are forever frozen and ever becoming, and any fulfillment would betray potential.
In order to experience true sorrow one must feel true joy to see the beauty of melancholy. However, Keats’s poem is not all dark imagery, for interwoven into this poem is an emerging possibility of resurrection and the chance at a new life. The speaker in this poem starts by strongly advising against the actions and as the poem continues urges a person to take different actions. In this poem, the speaker tells of how to embrace life by needing the experience of melancholy to appreciate the true joy and beauty of
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.
Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1996. The “Yeats, William Butler”. Microsoft Encyclopedia of the Encarta Encyclopedia. 1996.
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.