Ode to a Nightingale

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Ode to a Nightingale

• By John Keats

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About John Keats

• Born in 1795, died in 1821
• Poet of the English Romantic movement.
• Keats believed in the theory of negativity which
  stipulates that being uncertain allows a mind
  to access a well of knowledge. It is a state of
  open mindedness.
• This let things be theory can be seen in such
  present day authors as Philip Pullman in his The
  Subtle Knife.

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About Ode to a Nightingale

• While residing with his friend, Charles Brown, in
  the spring of 1819 Keats was observed sitting by
  the garden for several hours listening to a
  nightingales song. Upon his return, the scraps
  of paper on which he had written his thoughts
  became Ode to a Nightingale.
• This is a lyric poem which is often a short poem
  with only one speaker who is expressing complex
  emotions.
• This poem is also an ode, a type of lyric poem
  that has an elevated style and a serious subject.
• This poem is a series of immediate thoughts and
  emotions felt by Keats at one time. It is a chief
  example of his theory of negativity.

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Stanza I Background
Hemlock- a poison used by the Ancient Greeks.
Lethe- classical Greek one the of the seven
rivers of Hades whoever drunk from its
experience forgetfulness
Dryad- oak tree nymphs who were frequently shy
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Stanza I

• 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.

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Stanza I Analysis

• Throughout this stanza we see that while
  listening to a nightingale Keats experiences a
  mixture of pain and joy. In fact, he feels pain
  in the intense pleasure of the birds song (but
  being too happy in thine happiness)
• Also in this stanza we become aware that the
  nightingale will transform from a mere bird to an
  essential symbol.

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The Nightingale Uncovered

• After the first stanza we already see that the
  nightingale is not merely an animal. Keats might
  mean it to symbolize

• Joy

- Keats himself
- Nature
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Stanza II Background

• Flora- Roman Goddess of flowers

Hippocrene-Greek mythology the fountain on Mt.
Helion that was sacred to the Muses and formed by
the hooves of Pegasus drinking the water brings
poetic inspiration
Provencal- an area in the south of France.
Vintage- fine wine
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Stanza II

• O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
• Coold a long age in the deep-delved earth,
• Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
• Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
• O for a beaker full of the warm South!
• Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
• With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
• And purple-stained mouth
• That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
• And with thee fade away into the forest dim

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Stanza II Analysis

• Unlike the pain felt in the first stanza here we
  see Keats attempting to escape reality and move
  to a more fanciful world.
• Important in this stanza is the specific words
  Keats invokes to better visualize the state he
  wishes to achieve. Words like vintage, green,
  and sunburnt mirth (since they danced in the
  summer time) heighten the unreality of the scene.
• It is important to note that while it seems Keats
  is attempting to get drunk, that is not his goal.
  Instead, because of the wine his world is
  idealized. Perhaps he reaches the state of
  negativity.
• The theme of wine and merriment is continued in
  the phrase beaded bubbles winking at the brim
  which gives us a sense of champagne. Also notice
  the alliteration, like bubbles popping.

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Stanza III

• 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 grey 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.

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Stanza III Analysis

• After a stanza of merriment the author is pulled
  back to reality, one without the joy of the first
  stanza.
• The tone of the stanza is forlorn, and depressed,
  and we see by the use of fade, far away, and
  dissolve that the poet is numb, and
  disconnected once more.

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Stanza IV Background

• Bacchus- Greek god of wine and patron of theatre
  also known as the Liberator who would bring an
  end to care or worry he would also preside over
  communication between the living and the dead.

Fays- fairies
Poesy- another name for poetry fanciful poetry
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Stanza IV

• 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
• Already with thee! Tender is the night,
• And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
• Clusterd 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.

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Stanza IV Analysis

• Now Keats is turning back to imagination as we
  see by the opening phrase, Away! Away! For I
  will fly to thee. But he has decided against
  using spirits to reach the fantasy world, instead
  he will use poetry or poesy.
• In the phrase the dull brain (that) perplexes
  and retards, and the idea that poetry is
  viewless we see that he is attempting to
  discard logic in favor for emotion and feeling.
  We see that he is attempting to escape using
  poetry poesy.
• The tone of the stanza is dark. The author is
  viewless, and there is no light despite the
  moon being out and the stars shining. This
  darkness could be seen as frightening, but more
  likely the poet welcomes the dark, seeing it as a
  safe haven from thought and reality which he is
  trying to escape.
• Moonlight can also be seen as a symbol for
  imagination and fantasy which further enhances
  the idea of welcoming darkness and night.

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Stanza V Background
Hawthorn- a flower that often marks that spring
has arrived May blossom

• embalmed-fragrant preserved body

Eglantine- rose
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Stanza V

• 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 pastoral eglantine
• Fast-fading violets coverd up in leaves
• An mid-Mays eldest child,
• The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
• The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

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Stanza V Analysis

• The sensuous imagery in this stanza is especially
  present in the poets employment of flowers.
  After stanza IV, where the poet is blinded he
  must rely on other senses. Our sense of touch is
  teased by the grass, the thicket, the fruit tree
  wild, but also our sense of smell which we feel
  in musk-rose.
• We see now that the darkness is indeed a refuge,
  but we also understand that there is death even
  in this safe place. The violets are fading. May
  has many children (eldest child), and there is
  the hint of summer in the nightingales song
  which would lead to the end of spring.
• The theme of lurking death is also present in the
  double meanings for embalmed. The darkness is
  sweet, but death is closing in on it.
• This death might have been foreshadowed in the
  first stanza with the poisonous flowers and the
  classical references to death.

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Stanza VI

• Darkling I listen and, for many a time
• I have been half in love with easeful Death,
• Calld him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
• To take into the air my quiet breath
• Now more than ever it seems 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.

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Stanza VI Analysis

• Requiem- song for the dead
• The bird, whose blissful and easy song the author
  has long desired, is changing in this stanza. The
  poet, who has believed that death might free him
  and make him like the bird, has realized that
  death is an end to life, not a beginning to it.
  He realizes his error and now knows that if he
  were to die then he could never feel the birds
  jubilation.
• The birds shift in meaning is also evident in
  the change in its song. It is now a requiem, a
  song of death, which would make its admirer, the
  poet, a sod.

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Stanza VII Background

• Ruth- character from the Bible a Maobite who,
  while working in the fields, was seen by Boaz who
  married her she is referenced for her devotion
  to her mother-in-law after Boaz died and she has
  achieved immortality for her deeds and because
  her descendent is David

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Stanza VII

• Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
• No hungry generations tread thee down
• The voice I hear passing this 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 ofttimes hath
• Charmd magic casements, opening on the foam
• Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

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Stanza VII Analysis

• After describing his own mortality, Keats begins
  to ponder the birds immortality. Although we
  know that a bird is not immortal it is possible
  Keats is describing the immortality of what the
  bird symbolizes (joy, nature, beauty). The birds
  song will live forever, and has lived since the
  beginning of time.
• The birds immortality is also seen in its
  connectedness with nature, something that man
  lacks. The bird doesnt know it is going to die,
  so it is free from death whereas as men are
  constantly aware of it. It is also necessary to
  note that it might be our ability to comment and
  admire nature, as Keats is doing, that separates
  us.
• Also, compared to the birds blissful life,
  humans or constantly hungry. For immortality?
  Or are we hungry for that joining with nature
  that Keats sought in the first several stanzas of
  the poem.

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Stanza VII Analysis Continued

• The passage of time in this stanza is also
  important. Keats moves from concrete time,
  ancient days by emperor and clown, to Biblical
  time with his reference to Ruth and her loyalty,
  and finally to unsubstantial time, that of fairy
  lands forlorn. Because of this disintegration of
  time the past becomes more separated. The painful
  imagery of the three depictions of time, even the
  fanciful one, allows us to see that Keats is
  still trying to distance himself from it. He is
  still in pain.

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Stanza VIII

• 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 famed 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 is a vision, or a waking dream?
• Fled is that music--do I wake or sleep?

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Stanza VIII Analysis

• The final stanza is the poet awakening from his
  musings. The bird, or the deceiving elf, has
  resumed the guise of a real bird once more.
• The awakening causes the poet to also wonder
  whether what he has written were merely musings,
  daydreams, or had he reached that state of open
  mindedness that he sought in the beginning? Has
  Keats benefited from his mind trip? The last
  stanzas tone is regretful and despairing and it
  seems he feels cheated, but we may find hope. Is
  there the promise of future musings in and now
  tis buried deep in the next valley-glades?

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IMMORTALITY

• Despite the poets indecision at the end of the
  poem there is something to be gleaned from his
  words. Keats discusses the continuity of nature
  and, in a way, its constant changing through the
  references of seasons.
• Beyond the immortality of nature, Keats might
  also be commenting on the immortality of beauty,
  of how arts change like the moon but are
  constantly present.

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Keats Immortality

• It is important to note that at the time Keats
  wrote this poem he was ill, probably having
  contracted tuberculosis (consumption). His
  brother, Tom, had just died months before. There
  was no cure at the time for the disease and it is
  speculated that he wrote Ode to a Nightingale
  because he was aware of his own mortality.
• Keats died in Italy two months after staying with
  his friend, at the age of twenty-five.

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ADIEU!
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Works Cited

• Ode to a Nightingale. John Keats. August 24,
  2004. http//academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/me
  lani/cs6/keats.html
• Gale 7 March 2008. http//academics.org/Ode_to_a_
  Nightingale
• Poetry.org 2000-2006. http//www.Poetry.org/essay-
  2005/11/21/41449/667