summary and critical analysis of ode to nightingale

1. ODE TO NIGHTINGALE
Prepared by:
Taqdees Hira

2. Background of the ode
 When Keats was living with his friend Charles
Armitage Brown in Hampstead. A
nightingale had built a nest close to that
house. Keats was so influenced by the song of
that nightingale and he felt utter joy in her
song. One morning he took his chair from the
breakfast table to the grass plot under a plum
tree, where he sat for 2-3 hours and wrote
this poem.
 Nightingale means “night songstress”.

3. Background
 Written in 1819.
 Published in ‘Annals of the Fine Arts’ in
july,1819.
 Consists of 8 stanzas of 10 lines each.
 These 10 lines consists of a Shakespearean
quatrain (abab) and a Petrarchan sestet
(cdecde).

4. Themes of the poem
 Pain vs. pleasure
 Reality vs. transcendence (going beyond range)
 Melancholy
 Experience of beauty
 Sensuousness and passion
 Search of joy
 Escapism
 Immortality /timelessness
 Mythical imagery
 Idealism vs. skepticism
 Romanticism ( to go into the world of fantasy and then the return to
actuality)
 Aesthetic beauty causes senselessness and ambiguity in poet’s mind

5. Critical analysis
 Keats starts the poem by describing his experience of an
excessive joy.That joy turns into joyous pain when he hears
the song of a Nightingale.
 “My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains”
 On hearing the song, his five senses seemed to be
overpowered by sleep and dullness. It seems as if he has
drunk poisonous plant ‘Hemlock’ or he has just sunk into
the ‘Lethe’, Greek river of forgetfulness. He assured the
Nightingale that he is not jealous of her rather he is
delighted that he is fortunate enough to listen to this
beautiful voice. He can feel joy in this green plot sitting
among beech trees and listening to the beautiful summer
songs sung by the birds.
 “Being too happy in thine happiness”

6. 2nd stanza
 The song of the Nightingale is giving him so much pleasure that
he tells her about his urge of having a pure wine from Provence (
a place in Scotland) kept in wine cellar since years. He wants this
wine because this wine would remind him of the original taste of
the fruit it is made up of, and about the peasants of that city,
dancing festivals and greenery of that place.
 “Tasting of Flora and the Country green”
 He further tells his wish that he wants to drink wine from
Hippocrene , a sacred fountain from Greek mythology used to
get poetic inspiration. He want to drink from that fountain
because he wants to forget everything around him and want to
escape the world to join the world of Nightingale into a dim
forest.
 “That I might drink and leave the world unseen, and with thee
fade away into the forest dim.”

7. 3rd stanza
 Now poet is talking to the Nightingale. He tells her that this world is
all about sorrow and that Nightingale does not know a bit about this
terrible world.
 “What thou among the leaves hast never known”
 Everyone is sunk into his own sphere of weariness, fret and fever.
Youth has become pale, people have grown older in early ages, life is
miserable and everyone is dying. Keats is talking about his own
sorrow of losing his brotherThomas due toTuberculosis. And when
his brother and mother died due to same disease, Keats became
sure somehow that he will die soon due to the same reason. He adds
to it by telling that thinking causes problems and beauty is short-
lived, and eyes have lost their shine and hope in them. No new love
can be born because everything is coming to its end earlier than
expected.
 “where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, or new Love pine
at them beyond tomorrow.”

8. 4th stanza
 Poet is so depressed due to the sickness around him that he
wants to leave this world. He wants and escape from the pains of
real life. He wished to fly into the world of imagination through
the wings of poetry and not by the ecstasy cause by wine
(Bacchus: god of wine), which he was asking earlier.
 “For I will fly to thee, not charioted by Bacchus and his pards..
But on the viewless wings of poesy”
 Though poetic imagination works like wine but it tastes sweeter
and more intoxicating than wine.The night is not very dark,
darkness is caused by tall and thick trees. Queen Moon is shining
in its full glory surrounded by Star Fairies.When wind blows, it
brings a ray of light with it. Here Keats is presenting the midnight
scene and its magical spell on him.

9. 5th stanza
 In this stanza poet has travelled into the Nightingale’s world.
The night is dark so he cannot see what flowers are under his
feet and what flowers are grown on the boughs. But he can
guess the flowers by their sweet smell. He can smell the
sweet scent everywhere.
 “I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, but in this
emblem darkness, guess each sweet”
 Later he tells that each of these flowers shows that this is the
month of MAY. As the grass, the thicket, white hawthorn,
wild eglantine, musk rose are the blessings of the MAY. As
flowers are in full bloom so honey bees have gathered
around them to make honey and poet can hear the
murmuring voice of those bees.
 “the murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves”

10. 6th stanza
 While listening the song of the Nightingale , poet feels death to be more
easy and better option than living in this cruel world. He is here
expressing his wish to escape the real world and reside permanently in
his world of imagination where no sorrow could touch him.
 ‘I have been half in love with easeful death’
 He said that he has written about death in his poems and he called it by
nick names with love. And its is more appropriate time to die than ever.
 ‘Now more than ever seems it rich to die’
 Then poet asks the nightingale , would she sing the same song that she
is singing now when the poet will die and his ears will no longer be able
to listen to its beautiful song.Then this song of her will become an elegy
on the death of the poet. Poet was aware of his death and he knew that
somebody will remember him in his songs.The same happens after his
death because P.B.Shelley wrote ADONAIS , an elegy on the death of
john Keats.
 ‘Still would thou sing , and I have ears in vain’

11. 7th stanza
 In this stanza he calls nightingale as an Immortal
bird, because the same song sung by the nightingale
was heard hundreds of years ago by the old
generations.The same song was a source of comfort
for Ruth, a lady from the OLDTESTAMENT.This
same song was enjoyed by the emperors and their
clowns. And this very song was heard in the lands of
fairies. So nightingale and her song exists since
centuries and no hungry and greedy generation can
ignore her existence.
 ‘thou was not born for death, immortal bird, no
hungry generations tread thee down’

12. 8th stanza
 In the concluding stanza, poet comes back to reality. He has
realized that world of imagination is temporary and short-
lived. And no imagination can stay for long, he has to come
to the real world and face the actualities of life, the sorrows
of thinking and the disease of the men. He said ADIEU:
good bye to the dream and the nightingale.The word
Forlorn is like a bell to him which make him return to the
actual reality.The voice of the nightingale is now going far
from him, and its almost gone. And now poet is not sure
either he is awake or sleep. Or was it just a vision or he was
in a dream while he was awake.
 ‘was it just a vision or a waking dream, fled is that music,
do I wake or sleep?’

13. Sensuousness
 Sense of sight: imagery of night ( queen
moon, star fairies), green trees, grass, white
and purple flowers
 Auditory sense: song of nightingale ,
murmuring of honey bees
 Sense of smell: smell of flowers in the forest
 Sense of taste: taste of vintage, taste of
flora,
 Synesthesia: purple stained mouth. Because
it is describing the sense of taste and sight.

14.  “It is a poem of midnight and
sorrow and beauty.”
 “Keats practiced the theory of
art for art’s sake.”
 “Ode to Nightingale is the
mighty abstract idea of Beauty
in all things.”