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Critical Appreciation of “Ode to Nightingale””

By JOHN KEATS

What is an Ode:
Ode is typically a lyrical verse written in praise of natural scenes & abstract
ideas or dedicated to someone or something which captures the poet’s interest
or serves as an inspiration for the ode.
Ode has its origin in the ancient Greek and Roman literature. At the earliest stage,
it was written to be sung with music chorus. At the time, the ode had three
parts: Strophe- to be sang by chorus moving to the left in a gesture of dance;
Antistrophe to be sung moving to the night and “Epode” to be sung standing still.
But an ode, in modern times, means a lyrical poem at serious subject and
elevated tone, written generally to shower praise upon some abstract concept are
some an animate objects. Though it originated in ancient times, it became a
popular form of poetry in England during the romantic age in the hands of such
great poets as Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats.

Features of an Ode:
An ode has these common features in them;
1- A single, unified strain of exalted lyrical verse.
2- Tends to focus on one purpose and theme.
3- Its tone and manner is typically elaborate, dignified, and imaginative.
4- There are three types of Odes in English: 1) the Pindaric or Regular ode; 2)
the Horatian or Homo-strophic; and 3) the Irregular ode
5- A classic ode is structured in three major parts:
(a) The Strophe (b) The Antistrophe (c) The Epode
6- The best of the odes have been written in the Romantic period.
Ode is an elaborately structured poem praising or glorifying an event or
individual, describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally.

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Ode to Nightingale by John Keats

John Keats was an English poet prominent in the second generation
of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, although
his poems were in publication for only four years before he died
of tuberculosis at the age of 25. The poem was published in the year
1819.The poetry of Keats is characterized by sensual imagery, most
notably in the series of odes. “Ode to Nightingale” is the loveliest poem of
Keats. Robert Bridges says about it:
“I could not name any English poem of the same length which contains so much
beauty”.

Setting of the Poem:

John Keats wrote this poem in May 1819 in either the garden of the
Spaniards Inn, Hampstead or according to Keats fried Charles Armitage
Brown, under a plum tree in the garden of Keats house, Hampstead,
London. A nightingale had built its nest near his house in the spring of
1819. Inspired by the bird song, Keats composed the poem in one day.

Form and Meter:

"Ode to a Nightingale" is a particular kind of ode – a Horatian ode, after the
Roman poet Horace. In general, a Horatian ode has a consistent stanza
length and meter. The poem has eight separate stanzas of ten lines each,
and the meter of each line in the stanza, except for the eighth, is iambic
pentameter. The eighth line is written in iambic trimeter (ah! too many
prefixes!), which means it has only six syllables per line instead of ten.

Tone of the Poem:

The tone of the poem rejects the optimistic pursuit of pleasure found within
Keats's earlier poems and, instead, explores the themes of
nature, transience and mortality, the latter being particularly relevant to
Keats.

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Analysis of Literary Devices in “Ode to Nightingale”

Literary devices are tools used by writers and poets to convey emotions, ideas,
and beliefs. With the help of these devices, they make their texts appealing to
the reader. Keats has also used some literary devices in this poem to make it
unique and appealing. The analysis of some of the literary devices used in this
poem has been given below;

1. Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the

same line such as the sound of /th/ in “That thou, light-winged Dryad of
the trees”.
2. Simile: A simile is a figure of speech used to compare something with
something else to make its meaning clear. Keats has used simile in the
second stanza, “Forlorn! the very word is like a bell.” Here the poet is
comparing forlorn to a bell.
3. Enjambment: Enjambment refers to the continuation of
a sentence without a pause after the end of a line in a couplet or stanza.
For example:

“My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains.”

1. Imagery: The use of imagery makes the readers visualize the writer’s
feelings, emotions or ideas. Keats has used images to present a clear and
vivid picture of his miserable plight such as, “though of hemlock I had
drunk,”, “Past the near meadows,”, “Fast fading violets cover’d up in
leaves.”
2. Assonance: Assonance is the repetition of same vowel sounds in the
same lines of poetry such as the sound of /o/ in “In some melodious
plot” and /i/ sound in “The voice I hear this passing night was heard.”
3. Metaphor: There are two metaphors in this poem. The first one is used
in line eleven, “for a beaker full of the warm south”. Here he compares
liquid with the southern country weather.
4. Personification: Personification is to give human qualities to non-
human things. Keats has used personification in line twenty-nine,
“where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes” as if the beauty is human
and can see. The second example is in line thirty-six, “The Queen moon
is on her throne.”
5. Anaphora: It refers to the repetition initial words of sentences in
sequence or in the whole stanza or even the poem. Keats has repeated

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the word “where” in the following lines to emphasize the existence of his
imaginative world. For example:

“Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes.”

6. Apostrophe: An apostrophe is a device used to call somebody from afar.

The poet has used this device in line sixty-one, “Thou wast not born for death,
immortal Bird.”

The literary analysis shows that this poem successfully describes Keat’s deep
meditations about death under cover of these literary devices.

Analysis of Poetic Devices in “Ode to Nightingale”

Poetic and literary devices are the same, but a few are used only in poetry.
Here is the analysis of some of the poetic devices used in this poem.

1. Stanza: Stanza is a poetic form of some lines. There are eight stanzas in
this poem with ten lines in each stanza.
2. Rhyme Scheme: The poem follows ABABCDECDE throughout the
poem with iambic pentameter.
3. End Rhyme: End Rhyme is used to make the stanza melodious such as
in the first stanza the rhyming words are, “pains”, “drains”, “drunk”,
“sunk.”
4. Internal Rhyme: Internal Rhyme is rhyme within a line such as in the
line, “To toll me back from thee to my sole self” two words “me” and
“thee” rhyme with each other.
5. Iambic Pentameter: It is a type of meter consisting of five iambs. The
poem comprises iambic pentameter such as,
“My Heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains.”

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Themes in “Ode to Nightingale”

Death, immortality, mortality and poetic imaginations are some of the

major themes of this ode. Keats says that death is an unavoidable
phenomenon.

He paints it in both negative and positive ways. On the one hand, its presence
sucks the human spirit, while on the other hand, it offers the realm of free
eternity. The poet also presents the life and melodious song of the nightingale
in juxtaposition. To him, life is mortal, but the song of the nightingale is
immortal. It has been a source of enjoyment for centuries and will stay so
even after his demise. Though he keeps himself engaged in the beautiful and
charming world of imaginations, he cannot stay there for good. Therefore, he
accepts that imagination is just a short source of peace.

Analysis of the Poem

‘Ode to a Nightingale’ is the loveliest poem of Keats. Robert Bridges says about it:

I could not name any English poem of the same length which contains so much beauty.‖
This ode reveals the highest imaginative powers of the poet. It was inspired by the
song of a nightingale which the poet heard in the gardens of his friend, Charles Brown.
It is a spontaneous expression of Keats’s life. The poem presents the picture of the
tragedy of human life. It brings out an expression of Keats' pessimism and dejection. He
composed this poem in 1819 when his family life was shattered at the time when his
heart was full of sorrow. His youngest brother Tom had died, the second one had gone
to America and the poet himself was suffering from Tuberculosis. At that time he was
also in the agony of his passionate love for Fanny Brawne. His financial condition was
unsecured. All these happenings had induced in the poet a mood of sorrow. He could
not suppress it. According to Douglas Bush,
―All these things compelled Keats to seek a favourite relief in abstract images.‖

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It is a ‗richly meditative ode‘ as Prof Hereford calls it. The central idea of this poem is
the contrast of the joy and beauty and permanence of the nightingale‘s song with the
sorrows of human life and the transitoriness of beauty and love in this world. The
nightingale‘s song in the poem symbolizes the beauty of nature and art. In the
beginning, Keats seems to be an immature youth with a melancholic heart urging to find
a means of oblivion and escape. The poet‘s mood in the two opening stanzas is one of
joy and ecstasy which almost benumbs his senses.

"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains,

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk."
This mood is due to the rapturous song of the nightingale. But, the poet also feels an
acute pain because he is conscious of his mortality and suffering. Being an escapist
Keats wants to throw of the burden of self -consciousness and sinks gradually into the
world of imagination. He desires for a beaker of wine by drinking which he can forget
this world of sorrows and misfortunes and fade away into the forest where the
nightingale is singing its joyous song. The poet‘s desire for wine does not mean a desire
for warmth and gaiety; it is a desire for escape from the world of realities.

―That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, and with thee fade away into the
forest dim.‖
Finally, by the help of the poetic imagination, he makes himself able to fly in the world of
the nightingale. Next, we find the poet ―half in love with easeful death‖. The thought
of his own death makes him contrast the mortality of human beings with the immortality
of the nightingale. According to Calvin,
―The poet contrasts the transitory of human life with the permanence of the song of the
bird‖.
Having denied a feeling of envy of the nightingale‘s joy in the opening stanza, he is now
in a mood of envying the immortality of the nightingale. In fact, no one can escape into
the ideal world forever. Imaginative minds can have a momentary flight into the fanciful
world. But, ultimately one has to return to the real world and must accept the reality.
John Keats is no exception to this. He makes imaginative flights into the ideal world but
accepts the realities of life. He wants to escape from the world of anxiety by virtue of his
imagination but he is fully aware of the fact that:
―The Fancy cannot cheat so well,
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf‖.
‗Ode to a Nightingale’ is a highly romantic poem. Its romanticism is due to (a) its rich
sensuousness, (b) its expression of intense desire and deep melancholy, (c) its sweet

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music, and its fresh and original phrases. These lines in the poem represent the pure
romanticism:

―The same that oft-times hath Charm‘d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.‖
The touch of the supernatural, the mystery, and above all the suggestiveness of these
lines have made them a test by which purely romantic poetry can be judged and
measured.
The poem is one of the finest examples
of Keats‘s pictorial quality and his rich
sensuousness. We have an abundance
of rich, concrete, and sensuous
imagery. The lines in which the poet
expresses a passionate desire for some
Provencal wine or the red wine from the
fountain of the Muses have a rich
appeal. ―O, for a draught of vintage,
that hath been Cool‘d a long age in the
deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and
the country green, Dance, and
Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth!‖
Then there is the magnificent picture of the moon shining in the sky and surrounded by
stars, looking like a queen surrounded by her attendant fairies.
―And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne.
Cluster‘d around by all her starry Fays.‖
The rich feast of flowers that awaits us in the next stanza is one of the outstanding
beauties of the poem. Flowers, soft incense, the fruit trees, the white hawthorn, the
eglantine, the fast-fading violets, the coming musk-rose full of sweet juice—all this is a
delight for our senses.
"Ode to a Nightingale" is written in ten-line stanzas. However, unlike most of the other
poems, it is metrically variable. The first seven and last two lines of each stanza are
written in iambic pentameter; the eighth line of each stanza is written in trimeter, with
only three accented syllables instead of five. It also differs from the other odes in that its
rhyme scheme is the same in every stanza (every other ode varies the order of rhyme in
the final three or four lines. Each stanza in this ode is rhymed ABABCDECDE.
To sum up, Keats soars high with his 'wings of poesy' into the world of ideas and perfect
happiness. But the next moment, consciousness makes him land on the grounds of
reality and he bids farewell to the ideal bird. At this moment, Keats must also have been
conscious that the very bird, which he had idealized and immortalized, existed in the
real world, mortal and vulnerable to change and suffering like himself.

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Life is critical but song of nightingale is not and “Ode to Nightingale” is its appreciation.
It is also about hard life’s experiences of the poet. It is a journey from real world to the
world of imagination. The poet escapes to the world of nightingale. He finds imaginative
world more peaceful and harmonious than real world. However, he is alone there too.
Ultimately, he returns with a lesson that escape is possible only with death.
Oliver Elton is of the view that this ode has variety of passionate expressions.
Indeed, “Ode to Nightingale” is not only about critical life and appreciation of
nightingale’s song but also an expression of feelings and emotions. Stanza to
stanza, poet’s thought develops. His mood changes and he expresses his
emotions.
John Keats, in “Ode to Nightingale” makes a comparison between several
things. Some of them are:
 Art and life
 Mortality and immortality.
 Imagination and reality.
 World of mankind and world of nightingale.
 Natural beauty and artificiality.
 Pleasure and pain
 Life and death

Conclusion:

“Ode to Nightingale”, in a nutshell, is the expression of feelings. It is a highly impressive

poem of John Keats. The poem is evident that he is a true romantic and a pure poet. It
reveals his strong imaginative powers. He has successfully managed making
comparisons and demonstrating nature and its objects. He has proved that song of
nightingale is immortal. It has also been proved that imagination is pleasurable and the
life is painful. Sidney Colvin’s remarks are worth mentioning. He said:

It [Ode to Nightingale] is among the varied glories of the English poetry.