'Ode to a Nightingale' This essay discusses the numerous symbolism and imagery John Keats uses throughout his poem.

While both Keats and Longfellow often reflect on their own unfulfilled dreams and impending deaths, the poems however contrast on their own dispositions towards death and the future. Here, Keats expresses a fear of not having enough time to accomplish all that he believes he is capable of doing,

何梓涵 12010007 To Professor Hou Yiling English Literature The Transient Sublime and Mortality in “Ode to a Nightingale” Composed during the most creative period in Keats’s brief poetic career, “Ode to a Nightingale” has long been regarded as one of the most refined works of his poetry. Previous criticism has comprehensively explored its themes of nature, beauty and mortality, as well as its demonstration of Keats’s notion of Negative Capability. But based on my research, few critical reviews have touched upon the point which I find clearly suggest itself in this poem: that the poet’s experience here depicted is not merely an escape into the realm of ideal beauty, but also an intoxication with the Romantic sublime. Between the sublime and

Keats’s “When I have fears that I may cease to be” represents the major key concepts of Romanticism values through his use of the significant metaphor that is linked with the natural world. “Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain” symbolises the pen as a tool for harvesting and “Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain”, is the product that is finalised from all the hard work on the field. Keats reflects his hard work of poetry to the importance of nature and compares it to harvesting to visualise the method of producing these products. With the importance of nature that has been comprehensively characterised in the poem, Keats poetry has shown to be effectively reflective to the values of Romanticism.

John Keats has many memorable and distinct poems. He is well known for his ability to write and adored by many. Ode on Indolence is a poem that can be relatable to its readers due to its idea of how indolence interferes with life’s opportunities, in particular the three mentioned in the poem, love, ambition and poesy. Keats refers to these three figures as “ghosts” (51) therefore insinuating that they once lived, but now they are mere figments of energy and air.

Keats was a key figure in the Romantic era in the first part of the 17th century which, according to René Wellek 's classic definition, sought to substitute 'imagination for the view of poetry, nature for the view of the world, and symbol and myth for poetic style. ' Therefore, Keats ' 'Ode to a Nightingale ', written in 1819, has an affiliation with the natural world, through both the metaphors he uses and his meter and rhyme. The fact that the poem is an Ode to a nightingale shows that Keats is addressing the bird in particular and therefore it asserts the link that is found in Romanticism between humans and the natural world. M. H. Abrams states that Keats wrote this poem, whilst reminiscent of a Horation Ode, as what came to be known as a Romantic Meditative Ode which is 'the personal ode of description and passionate meditation '. It is clear here that what Keats is passionate about in this poem is 'the country-green '. Keats coined the term negative capability to describe 'passionate mediation ' in a letter to

Readers of Keats’s story begin to realize that the fear of a young death is a demon that haunts us all. This was Keats’s goal as a romantic writer: to connect with the reader, to portray his ideas in the form of art, and to make the reader see from his point of view. With his use of colorful figurative language, such as repetition, imagery, and personification, Keats accomplishes his goal. The reason that Keats is so successful in painting a clear picture is because he “uses his imagination to write” (King). By writing his poem in the form of a “Shakespearean sonnet consisting of three quatrains” (King), Keats, like any great artist, clearly states the point he is trying to make. Apprehension of a young demise is a plague that haunts us all. In “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to be,” Keats takes our hands and reassures us that we are not

John Keats’ poem, When I have fears that I may cease to be, is a well-known work that embodies many Romantic principles. The poem, explored in the context of Keats’ suffering from consumption, laments human impermanence while simultaneously exploring philosophical notions. Keats implements the use of the Shakespearean sonnet with each quatrain, beginning with the ambiguous, but time-bound word ‘when,’ manifesting these ideas in unique ways. When I have fears that I may cease to be uses the structure of the sonnet to delineate between the realms of reality and fantasy, while contributing to the overarching concept of eternity and ultimately reaches the conclusion that even lofty ideas that appear eternal ultimately erode.

John Keats’s poem begins with “when I have fears that I may cease to be”, bluntly asking what would happened if he died today. He asks himself

Keats seems to find true beauty in everything; every view or perspective he has. In Ode to a Nightingale, the beauty is thinking that maybe death gives some one a chance not to have any worries, but knowing that there is always light at the end of a tunnel, and showing that there is always some one’s own Nightingale to put life into perspective when change is needed. Yes, the Nightingale in the poem might represent darkness in a way in which Keats thinks of death throughout many scenarios, but Keats still imagines this Nightingale as a beautiful creature in a beautiful world, “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” (Lines 56-60). Keats is not envious of the Nightingale, but just wants to be like it and have a life of

John Keats was a well established English poet in the early 19th century. His work is greatly influenced by his family, studies, political views, and life experiences. Keats was born October 31st, 1795 in a stable to his devoted parents, Thomas and Frances Keats (15). Before Keats’s twentieth birthday he would experience many hardships from the passing of both of his parents as well as his grandmother. Thomas Keats died in 1804 after an accident occurred while riding his horse, leaving John Keats as the ‘man’ of the house at the young age of nine. Less than five years passed before Frances Keats fell ill and passed after contracting tuberculosis. At a young age Keats experienced great loss and suffering that would linger with him for the entirety

Primarily, Keats’s use of this theme shows the importance of human life. As Keats states with his line, “Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed, / But Death intenser -Death is Life's high meed,” (), life has many intense elements, but death ultimately serves as the highest point of life. Because of the intense questioning of death by Keats’s narrator, Keats shows the importance of living life before the finality of death inevitably hits. Keats also allows a certain amount of personal freedom through his use of the glorification of the ordinary with the way that he begins his poem. As the poem begins, Keats tells that, “No God, no Demon of severe response, / Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell,” (). This line intends to show the complicated nature of religion and the mute lips which it comes from. Keats essentially throws religion out the window with this line, and he states that there are more important elements in life than religion such as the importance of living itself. In relation to this statement of life’s more important elements, Keats does acknowledge death’s ability through lines such as, “Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease, / My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads;” (), and “Yet would I on this very midnight cease,” (), but he also places a heavy importance on living life simply because it is to be lived rather than dreaded or pondered. Lastly, Keats provides a final layer of depth by implying that his narrator laughed because of life and death. Keats shows this through his constant questioning of life and death in the context of laughing. By providing a satire to both life’s purpose and death’s inevitability, Keats shows us the greatest example of glorification of the ordinary which he has to offer throughout his poem by illustrating that death should be disregarded and life should be lived in

Keats, on the other hand, uses the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” to express his perspective on art by examining the characters on the urn from either an ideal or realistic perspective. In the beginning, Keats asks questions regarding the “mad pursuit” (9, p.1847) of the people on the Grecian urn. As the Grecian urn exists outside of time, Keats creates a paradox for the human figures on the urn because they do not confront aging but neither experience time; Keats then further discusses the paradox in the preceding stanzas of the poem. In the second and third stanza, Keats examines the picture of the piper playing to his lover “beneath the trees” (15, p.1847) and expresses that their love is “far above” (28, p.1848) all human passion. Even though

In the second stanza, the speaker beholds a piper joyfully playing under the tress for his lover to find him with song. “Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared. The use of imagery of the senses is effective here. For I consider poetry to be more musical in nature than literary text. The speaker claims to be hearing melodies emanating from the urn, which for me the sound transmission from the urn correlates to the finite aspects of fleeting love. While the nature of art of the urn seems to me to represent the exquisiteness and infinity of the universe. Indeed, the sounds of silence from art is akin to vastness of space and time. “She cannot fade, though, thou hast not thy bliss,” (line19). Keats is asking the readers to not grieve for him. Because, her beauty will not diminish over time it is everlasting.

John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is written through the power of eternity, beauty and truth regardless of existence, as Wordsworth showed likewise. Keats illustrated his poem through love in its sublime. For example, in the first stanza he says, “What wild ecstasy?” (Keats 930). If ecstasy is a huge feeling of

“Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret.” (Keats) In “Ode to A Nightingale,” John Keats is the narrator who is in a state of drowsiness and numbness when he sees a nightingale and then goes