Ode to a Nightingale
The poem fuses "real melancholy" with "imaginary relief" to adequately express the double life of human experience. The poem’s movement through the different modes is achieved through a loose stylistic perfection; a dream-like experience of intoxication done with intense canto regularity. Ode to a Nightingale not only waxes and wanes between these realms, it vibrates deeply with a true look at what Keats in his life has endured, and foreshadows the death to come. Within the beauty there is still the ever-present, unrelenting mortality of man to ground us: "Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;/Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, /where youth grows pale, and spectra-thin, and dies" (Keats, ln. 24-6). Although, he is not too forlorn to take flight in the ecstasy of his own creative imagination and poetry. He allows the bird song to carry him off: "Away! Away! For I will fly to thee" (Keats, ln. 31). He escapes "the dull brain" (Keats, ln. 34) and forgets himself long enough to see "the Queen Moon is on her throne,/Clustered around by all her starry fays" (Keats, ln. 37-8). Stanzas 4 and 5 suppress the pain, which he returns to for the last three. However, we do not feel betrayed in either direction or pulled too
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Poesy Poesy, John Keats, Mount Helicon, Ode Nightingale, Ruth Bible, Queen Moon, , keats ln, youth grows pale, listened song nightingale, grows pale, starry fays, listened song, song bird, comparison nightingale, youth grows, sit hear, wake sleep, vision waking,
Approximate Word count = 1257
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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