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Harrison Stypula

Dr. Christine Cusick

SEL 265

4/26/2022

A Reflection on Nature in Our Modern World: Keats, Beauty in Nature, and Mortality

From the viewpoint of Chris Fitzpatrick, he gives a clear and painted image of what it

was like during the early days of the Coronavirus Pandemic. His words that “We will need more

than a vaccine and rebooted economy to heal us” seem true even to this point coming out of the

darker stages of the pandemic, at a time when we can finally be out and about in the natural

world and with other again (Fitzpatrick). This leads to the idea of just how important the natural

world is. It is something that seemed to have been forgotten to modern society, that is until the

time of the pandemic when people found themselves “self-isolating in a family hub, in direct

provision, in a prison cell” and completely trapped in the confines of home away from nature

(Fitzpatrick). Taking a look into the past to the writing of John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale” in

particular, provides a glimpse of the awe of nature and it’s simple yet complex beauty that Keats

describes in his poem which reminds us of the world we have taken for granted and pushed into

the fringes of existence. Additionally, we can relate to the talk of mortality and death given in

both Keats poetry as well as his own life view. In the time of the pandemic things that were lost

included both access to the natural world and a sense of safety in our own mortality, and I would

argue that through the reading of Keats poetry we can find some sense of peace with this

uncertainty through returning to seemingly forgotten appreciation of nature by modern humans.

Beginning with an aspect of Keats as a person and how it reflects in his work, he has

been described as a poet that often would “lose his own identity in a total identification with the
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object he contemplates” and found himself often “wrestling with the problem of evil and

suffering” (Greenblatt 950, 952). Even before the time of his drawn-out death from tuberculosis,

which his friend Joseph Severn claimed he had a “Dreadful Earnestness” to be freed from, Keats

poetry is filled with this imagery and philosophical points that lean towards the topic of mortality

(Corcoran 321). This “idea of death” as described by Corcoran shows that for Keats “death is for

poetry not only a context or a cause but an integral part of the very mechanism of representation”

(323). When looking at “Ode to a Nightingale” in the lines, “I have been half in love with easeful

Death, / Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme, / to take into the air my quiet breath;”

it’s easy to see the death imagery in Keats poem (lines 152-154). By going into this poem with

knowledge of how Keats viewed the inseparability of mortality and poetry we can find a better

understanding of his work as a whole besides the equally important aspects of nature and the

affect it has on our lives. 

For nature and the way Keats views it, the lines “That I might drink, and leave the world

unseen, / And with thee fade away into the forest dim:” seem to speak fluently this idea of

leaving the world, in this context through the consumption of wine, into the forest or as it can be

taken, the natural world (lines 19-20). Nature is viewed as an escape, something that anyone in

isolation would gladly take in a heartbeat. This open space that Keats describes full of beauty

and pleasure, the “vintage” from the vine brings this pleasure sure, but even more than that he

goes on to mention it is not through this consumption of wine that he finds this peace but on “the

viewless wings of Poesy,” (Keats line 33). It may seem based on this that Keats contradicts

himself, but rather than that I suggest that it is through the imagery of nature, written in the form

of poetry, that Keats uses as both the wine/nature imagery and “Poesy” a symbol of peace in life.

By stating it in such a way Keats is describing that poetry is important in a way that outshines the
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“draught of vintage” (Keats line 11). This furthers the idea of just how necessary not only nature

is to the human consciousness, but also the poetry and literature which captures it in the moment.

Returning to our modern viewpoint, we have considerably more accessibility in the world

than when Fitzpatrick wrote his article but have grown at least slightly more grateful of the

natural world than pre-pandemic times. Literature, particularly in the Romantic aspect of awe of

nature, gives us this escape that Keats seems to describe in “Ode to a Nightingale” even in times

when nature isn’t as accessible to everyone. Furthermore, the way we view mortality in our own

world and the fear we are given by it, can in this instance perhaps give solace through the words

of Keats that speak of death not as a fearful thing, but as a natural and almost kind being that is

integral to poetry as an art. Whether in nature or in the sense of mortality, Keats, and literature in

general, gives us a sense of gratitude and helps build appreciation for what is around us, be it a

park to walk around or the people that go with us. Nature is grounding, it brings us back to what

has been here since before us and will be here after us, and what Keats describes gives hope even

when things are unpleasant, and pleasure in the simple complexity of nature.
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Works Cited

Corcoran, Brendan. “Keats’s Death: Towards a Posthumous Poetics.” Studies in Romanticism,

vol. 48, no. 2, Summer 2009, pp. 321–48. EBSCOhost, https://search-ebscohost-

com.setonhill.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&AN=44749417&site=ehost-

live.

Fitzpatrick, Chris. The Irish Times. 27 Apr. 2020, www.irishtimes.com/opinion/only-the-poets-

will-be-able-to-make-any-sense-of-this-1.4238341. Accessed 16 Apr. 2022

Greenblatt, Stephen, general editor. The Romantic Period. Tenth ed., New York City, W. W.

Norton & Company, Inc., 2018, pp. 950-952. Vol. D of The Norton Anthology English

Literature.

Keats, John. "Ode to a Nightingale." 1819. The Romantic Period, Tenth ed., New York City, W.

W. Norton & Company, Inc., p. 977. Vol. D of The Norton Anthology English Literature.