Ode To A Nightingale

Question 1

When was it written

Answer 1

-1819 less than year after brother, Tom’s death from TB
-at this time Keats could feel his death was near as suffering symptoms TB
-1819 moved to Italy to improve health but failed + died 1821
-while visiting friend Charles brown
-wrote entire ode in morning

Question 2

What is the poem about

Answer 2

-work of profound human experience + had dramatic immediacy + spontaneity like his writings
-a NG built nest near Charles’s house
-Keats felt tranquil + continual joy in its song
-speaker feels disorientated from listening to song + feels bittersweet happiness at thought NG carefree life where as he is constrained

Question 3

What is the form of the poem as an ode

Answer 3

-formal, ceremonious lyrical poem
-is an Horatian ode — simplistic style adopted for tranquil + contemplative poetry
-stanzas uniform in metre, line length + rhyme
-address intense emotion at onset of personal crisis or celebrate object that leads to revelation

Question 4

What is the metre + rhyme scheme of the poem

Answer 4

-iambic pentameter — creates pleasing rhythm + makes text musical mimicking NG song
-L8 iambic trimeter — metrical variability makes verse flow smoothly + mirrors human speech
-ABAB CDE CDE — provides stability to poem mimic the stability + eternal song of NG contrast to the mortality of Keats + instability within life

Question 5

What are the origins of the nightingale

Answer 5

-Ovid’s mythology — woman named Philomena raped by sisters husband Tereus who cuts off her tongues to keep her quiet
-Philomena explains rape to sister by weaving embroidery about it
-sisters idea revenge is serve her son to her husband for dinner
-tereus learns of trick + kills two sisters but Greek gods save them by turning them into birds — Ph NG + sister swallow
-Ph who lost voice becomes bird with most beautiful voices in all nature
-Keats wishes flee from pressures of world like Ph escapes almost murderer

Question 6

What is the metaphor of the nightingale

Answer 6

-word NG only explicitly used in title + epithets of its immortality, besty, freedom, perpetuality + natural power used
-heightens power NG as exceeds limits of nature transcending times age + worlds
-metaphor + motif of divine, sublime + transcendence but still retains universality mirror Keats melancholy

Question 7

What is the unity between the speaker and the NG

Answer 7

-NG brings escapism + comfort to speaker
-offers alternate release from human misery
-connects Keats poetic imagination allowing access to nature through perspective of NG
-unity with NG takes speaker on journey from reality to fantasy to poetic imagination
-speaker drawn to bird + close to own mortality juxtaposing birds immortality
-contemplates birds sings as moment of intense perfection but dreamscape broken which its departure

Question 8

‘My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains’ S1

Answer 8

-dominant image first four lines heavy sense of melancholy + despair within speaker
-immediately sets somber tone hinting at thoughts of death
-reader know Keats symptoms TB + his death is near — alluding to his imminent death
-seeking help from otherworldly beings not just drugs + alcohol
-elongated vowels — heightens interminable suffering

Question 9

S1 L5-6 ‘tis not through envy of thy happy lot, but being too happy in thine happiness’

Answer 9

-birds freedom + happiness juxtaposes speakers sadness + entrapment in own misery
-speaker envious carefree nature of NG shining light on own unhappiness
-Keats feels NG creature of pure happiness, freedom + natural power — he felt a tranquil + continual joy upon hearing its song

Question 10

‘Some melodious plot’ S1 — sibilance ‘shadows numberless’ ‘singest of summer’

Answer 10

-NG song makes speaker feel calm + in trance witnessing bird in its glory
-wants to become one with the birds beauty + power
-contemplating birds song as moment intense perfection emph by sibilance creating peaceful tone/atmosphere mimicking
-sensory description
-bird doesn’t have force itself be happy + in harmony with nature but Keats does

Question 11

Reference to Greek mythology in stanza 1

Answer 11

-‘dryad’ — nature spirit who takes form of beautiful young woman
-believed lived as long as the trees they inhabited - trees live for hundreds of years years adding to eternality of NG

Question 12

‘Purple stained mouth//that I might drink, and leave the world unseen//and with thee fade away into the forest dim’

Answer 12

-the effect + pleasure that wine in a hot day brings Keats
-makes him forget his suffering + fills him with joy like that of the bird in his profound misery
-‘tasting of flora’ — wine tastes of natural world + personifies wine that will heal him
-‘deep delved earth’ — wine made from the earth brings him closer to being at one with nature + NG is his deepest desire
-wants to drink the wind + fade into the ‘forest dim’ + escape worries + transience
-contradiction with everlasting NG song + transience of life

Question 13

‘The weariness, the fever, and the fret’ ‘groan’ ‘last gray hairs’ ‘full of sorrow’ S3

Answer 13

-motif + imagery human suffering throughout
-syndetic list/ triple — emph perpetuality profound human misery that NG will never experience due to its transcendent beauty
-irony as Keats doesn’t get to age + become elderly due to his imminent death at 25 similar to NG who won’t grow old as eternal being

Question 14

‘Away! Away! for I will fly to thee’ S4

Answer 14

-repetition expresses poets desire flee from reality + join the otherworldly NG
-accentuated by exclamative
-wishes find escapism in natural world + escape hedonistic lifestyle + move on with NG
-giving himself animalistic qualities in attempt be one with the bird

Question 15

Celestial imagery S4 L6-9

Answer 15

-celestial + ethereal imagery — otherworldly things are mesmerising, beautiful + precious
-‘Queen-Moon’ — elevating nature to point of royalty, it’s so far above transience of human life

Question 16

What is the mythology in S4

Answer 16

-‘Bacchus’ — Roman god of wine + agriculture so has natural connections to the earth
-seen with vines of grapes around him
-speaker wants escapism that wine brings him
-

Question 17

‘The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;//White hawthorns, and the pastoral eglantine;//Fast fading violets S5

Answer 17

-connects to preceding stanza as continues sensory ethereal language + how he is still in his imagination trying become one with natural
-sensory language + triples describe flowers
-‘white hawthorns’ — signify optimism of positive outcomes
-‘eglantine’ — symbol of love, devotion + purity
-images of spring + new growth — can’t see this in forest of night but can detect it showing his desire to link with nature + highlights how become one with NG

Question 18

Gothic imagery in S5 ‘murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves’

Answer 18

-gothic imagery
-experience of being alone in the dark
-but speaker isn’t frightened as is with the NG a symbol of transcendence, happiness, freedom + tranquility
-the bird calms him
-allusion to his imminent death — perhaps speaker haunt the NG to be closer to it

Question 19

Why is stanza 6 the most personal

Answer 19

-gives personal insight to how the speaker wants to die
-‘I have been half in love with easel death’ — hinting at thoughts of suicide link to Keats’ severe depressive episodes + him wanting die to release profound suffering
-L6-8 tells reader how he wants die — wishes die when drunk on wine of Bacchus in forest with NG singing around him
-‘in such an ecstacy’ — meaning happiness as would bring joy if died this way
-Keats so much tragedy in life + thought death peaceful thing to leave suffering behind

Question 20

In stanza 6 what is the shift in attitude towards death

Answer 20

-‘still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—//To thy high requiem become a sod’
-wouldn’t be able hear NG singing
-NG keep singing as if nothing happened
-caesura — perhaps moment pausing reconsider + contemplate death if can’t be with NG anymore due to its immortality

Question 21

What is the image of Ruth in stanza 7

Answer 21

-biblical reference to widow famous for loyalty to kin of dead husband
-euphemism for sadness + death
-Keats compares sadness of NG song to sadness of widow who feels she is in an alien land + awaits her return home
-NG otherworldly + so perhaps in alien home + wants to return to natural world like Keats does
-also sadness of his life as lost off family + bore no children

Question 22

‘Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam//Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn’ S7

Answer 22

-the song can transcend him to any time
-further alludes to NG immortality — anyone past, present or future will experience beauty of NG song
-sense comfort + connection between humanity + nature
-images of fantasy + imagination — imagining NG as otherworldly + ultimately powerful creature that can open casements with its song

Question 23

‘Adieu!’ Repeated S8

Answer 23

-dramatic farewell like a final goodbye
-sense finality between him + NG + also with his life as dying
-saying goodbye to nature as last time get to experience it in all its beauty
-last attempt be one with nature before imminent death — melancholic tone

Question 24

S8 ends with multiple rehetorics

Answer 24

-poem returns to reality
-‘was it a vision, or a waking dream?//Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
-confusion of reality with fantasy
-was this experience real
-contemplating if he wants to be awake if he can’t be with the song of NG