Ode to a Nightingale - Keats Flashcards
What is an ode?
Ancient Greek song performed at formal occasions, usually in praise of its subject
What type of ode is Ode to a Nightingale?
Horatian
What is a horatian ode?
Consistent stanza length and metre
What is Ode to a Nightingale known for?
Longest of 6 Great Odes
Most personal with its reflections on death and stresses of life
What does Ode to a Nightingale describe?
Describes Keats’ journey into the state of negative capability
- imagines loss of physical world and sees himself dead
What is negative capability?
Characterises capacity of greatest writers to pursue vision of artistic beauty even when it leads them into intellectual confusion and uncertainty, as opposed to a preference for philosophical certainty over artistic beauty
Summary of first stanza of Ode to a Nightingale
Keats, in his heartache, feels he has drunk poison but declares that he does not envy the nightingale for being happy
Summary of second stanza of Ode to a Nightingale
Keats wishes for wine that tastes like “dance” and the “country green” so that he could use alcohol’s psychological effects on the mind to float away with the nightingale
Summary of third stanza of Ode to a Nightingale
Keats describes reality of the world
- sickness, ill health and conflict
Summary of fourth stanza of Ode to a Nightingale
The conflicted nature of human life dominates the poem, so much it is unclear whether it happened or not
Goes on to describe his ideal world however he can’t actually transport himself there and the end of the nightingale’s song brings the end of his fantasy
Summary of the fifth stanza of Ode to a Nightingale
Keats writes that although he can’t see the different flowers, he can use each flower’s scent to label them in the “embalmed darkness”
Summary of the sixth stanza of Ode to a Nightingale
Keats has been “half in love” with the idea of dying
Nightingale’s song would make dying easier but his ears would then only be able to hear the bird’s song “in vain”
Summary of the seventh stanza of Ode to a Nightingale
Invests bird with everlasting “immortal” quality and further extends its trait of triumphing over constraints of time by saying that its song has been heard by the Biblical character Ruth as well as by other ancient emperors and kings and further possesses a magical quality and is thereby “charmed” to open “casements” on a ship
Summary of eighth stanza of Ode to a Nightingale
Utterance of “forlorn” (end of stanza 7) drags Keats back to his present self and realisation that his wishful thinking “fancy” has not been effective in transporting him into the lands of carefree nightingale
Bids farewell “adieu” to bird and ponders whether the experience was a reality or imagined “waking dream”
What type of poem can Ode to a Nightingale be defined as?
Escapist
