Ode to a Nightingale
John Keats utilizes nature as a way to create a fantasy he wishes to escape to. Keats expresses his thoughts on both the joy and pain of human life. He starts off telling us that he wants to forget the pain but yet he thinks about the happiness he has gone through too. Nature can be beautiful but yet it can be dark. Throughout this poem, Keats uses many nature-related colors like "of beechen green"(line 9), "and purple-stained mouth;"(line 18), "last gray hairs"(line 25), and "fast fading violets"(line 47). The green and the violet may represent a brighter joy whereas the gray and purple can be negative aspects of life. The "purple stained mouth" represents wine showing that drunkenness is his answer to avoid hardship and ache.
He also uses many history references relating to mother earth such as "One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:" (line 4), symbolizing the river of forgetfulness in Hades. A river is never ending and Keats would want to forget all about the ocean of pain in reality forever. Another reference would be "That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees," (line 7) which points to the Roman goddess of flowers that represents the blossoming of love and pleasure just like the old saying of "the birds and the bees" would also bring upon joy and love.
The focus of this poem is on a natural creature itself, a nightingale. Many people may think that it is a female nightingale that sings but it is the male that entertains us with its vocals. It seems as that Keats himself may be singing a song of his sorrow and delight. A nightingale continuously sings everyday of its life and Keats wishes to be the nightingale itself that sings a continuous song of joyful fantasy. A nightingale can also fly away just as John Keats wants to fly away from his problems and keep soaring for happiness.
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ReplyDeleteInteresting analysis, but I got a different one, it took a couple of times rereading it but here it is. The title is Ode to a Nightingale, which is a lyrical poem to a singing bird. He writes this poem because the bird which sings such beauty inspires him, but not only of all the good things in his life, but also all the bad. John Keats compares the "the singest of summer in full-throated ease."(10) as a contrast to the first line "My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains. He shows line ten is the Joy that he can relate with the bird. It is contradicting to the first line to show that the bird sings of Joy not only to cheer John up, but like him the bird is singing to cheer itself up. The Poem he is writing to the bird is not Keats trying to escape his problems, because if that were the case he would never bring them up in the poem to begin with. He writes this poem as a short summary of his life’s joys and sorrows. He sings this poem to the bird not because he is envious of the bird, but because he is relating to the bird. The bird which is sings of joy is symbolic to the joys in his life, yet will all the happiness he has there is sadness as well. Also Keats does not want to fly away from his problems like a nightingale because with problems there would be no solutions, no happiness, but he praises the bird which he relates to because it can fly, not envy that he wishes he can fly too.
ReplyDeleteALL in ALL good blog post
I agree with the comment above; Keats doesn’t envy the nightingale's happiness, but rather, he's happy that the nightingale is happy. As for utilizing nature, I don't think Keats used it as a way to create a fantasy that he could escape to; I see it as him kind of dozing off into a dream-like condition because of the peace and calmness brought by the nightingale's song. In a way, it might not even be a fantasy; to Keats, everything that happened in the ode might as well be real. He talked about being with the nightingale and being immersed in nature. Because of the peace that this dream-like condition brought him, Keats probably does want to forget reality, so that he could remain in this dream.
ReplyDeleteGG
I think that the speaker is envious of the bird, but not because it can fly away or because the bird is happy, but because the bird was not "born for death, immortal" (61), and his voice, his song was "heard/In ancient days by emperor and clown" (63-64). The nightingale's song is known forever and to all people, but because he is human the speaker faces "weariness, the fever, and the threat" (23), which is similar to what Jenny said. The speaker is certainly happy for the nightingale, and I think that nature is used as a reference to a heaven or haven that the speaker can only get to when he dreams.
ReplyDeleteThe speaker is not envious of the bird but instead the speaker is using the bird. He tries to relate to the bird by using the bird's song to escape reality. He wants to be like the bird and sing a song of joy but instead his life is filled with songs of misery. Due to the pain Keats wants to escape from reality. He puts himself in the eyes of the Nightingale so that he can escape reality into his imagination.
ReplyDeleteYou pointed out the rigorous colorful descriptions that Keats used to describe the images in the poem. Like the ones you pointed out, “beechen green", purple-stained mouth;", "last gray hairs"(line 25), and "fast fading violets"(line 47), and your creatively provide the emotion behind each color based on the poem. In my opinion, I do not think Keats is envious of the bird but instead the speaker is just greatly immersed himself to the view and the sound of the Nightingale. When he is hypnotized by the image of the nature, he did temporary forget the sorrow and depressing emotions in his real life.
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