Essay for Keats Ode to the Nightingale for BA students
“Ode to a Nightingale” Summary John Keats is one of the most famous romantic poet who dominated the 18thc literature. His poem “Ode to the Nightingale” was written in the year 1819. This poem explores the theme of death-wish of the poet. It describes the inner emotional world of the poet along with natural world. Keats’s odes, is an extraordinary example of spontaneous formal writing. The poet feels tired and numb at heart. He feels unconscious like a man who has drunk Hemlock or opiate or sunk into the river of Lethe. The poet is delighted to hear the voice of the Nightingale which is singing freely and joyfully. He identifies the bird with Dryad, the Greek Goddess of the tree. He contrasts the mortality and suffering of human being with the immortality and perfect happiness of the nightingale. Keats desires to “ squeeze every last drop” of wine and travel to the happiest land of Nightingale. He realises that world is a place of uncontrollable movements of illness, st