Theme Of John Keats And Ode To A Nightingale

The similarities between the poems lie in their abilities to utilize imagery as a means to enhance the concept of the fleeting nature that life ultimately has and to also help further elaborate the speaker’s opinion towards their own situation. In Keats’ poem, dark and imaginative images are used to help match with the speaker’s belief that both love and death arise from fate itself. Here, Keats describes the beauty and mystery of love with images of “shadows” and “huge cloudy symbols of a high romance” to illustrate his belief that love comes from fate, and that he is sad to miss out on such an opportunity when it comes time for his own death.

But, we should first and foremost put this sonnet back in its context. We can easily presume that it is autobiographic, thus that Keats reveals us his own worries. In 1818, he is aware that he has short time left to live due to the fatal illness

Mortality is a moving and compelling subject. This end is a confirmation of one’s humanity and the end of one’s substance. Perhaps that is why so many writers and poets muse about their own death in their writings. Keats and John Donne are two such examples of musing poets who share the human condition experience in When I Have Fears and Holy Sonnet 1.

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

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

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

Meanwhile in “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, the speaker experiences the belly of the whale when he comes to the realization that he will never be immortal like the painting on the urn. The belly of the whale--as mentioned before--deals with the lowest point in the character’s life, and specifically in this case, the persona, a human with a mortal life desires the ability of being immortal. The speaker undergoes the same wants as Dorian Gray but does not gain them. If anything “Ode on a Grecian Urn” serves as the realistic version of people accepting mortality than The Picture of Dorian Gray. Although Dorian Gray expresses what it “looks like” to receive what a person wishes for, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” turns a lesson into a wide perspective about what

Poetry of any era furthers our understanding of the current world. This is because many of the issues we once faced, we still face today. In this short essay I will compare and contrast figurative language in two poems. The first of which will be “Ozymandias” by Percy Shelley written in 1818; and the second of which, will be “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats written a year later in 1819. “Ode to a Nightingale” explores the themes of mortality and impermanence. In Shelley’s work, “Ozymandias” examines the themes of power and mortality. The first thing I have noticed is that both have a strong focus ancient civilizations and a distinct focal point on the ancient Greeks and Romans.

This poem that I am going to be focusing on is titled "Ode to Autumn",

The twenty-four old romantic poet John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” written in the spring of 1819 was one of his last of six odes. That he ever wrote for he died of tuberculosis a year later. Although, his time as a poet was short he was an essential part of The Romantic period (1789-1832). His groundbreaking poetry created a paradigm shift in the way poetry was composed and comprehended. Indeed, the Romantic period provided a shift from reason to belief in the senses and intuition. “Keats’s poem is able to address some of the most common assumptions and valorizations in the study of Romantic poetry, such as the opposition between “organic culture” and the alienation of modernity”. (O’Rourke, 53) The irony of Keats’s Urn is he likens

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

In the context of John Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” “The Wild Swans at Coole” by William Butler Yeats raises compelling dialogue with Keats’ piece, which suggests that Yeats, to some degree, draws inspiration from John Keats, in that his pose concerning the nightingale becomes a basis and “touchstone” for “The Wild Swans at Coole.” Aside from commonalities concerning avians, both poems share elements of Romanticism, melancholy, feelings of weariness, and other key ideas, images, and plots as “Ode to a Nightingale” and thus, “The Wild Swans at Coole” strengthens Keats’ initial ideas in a harmonic and resonant fashion using its own unique methods. As a response to Keatsian Romanticism, Yeats revises the ideas surrounding transcendence of

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

“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 on to explain his encounter with the bird. Although the surface level meaning of the poem is a man expressing his thought to and about a bird, there is a deeper meaning that can be seen when you investigate the literary devices used. Keats uses imagery, tone, and symbolism to display the theme of pain and inner conflict between life and death.