John Keats – Ode to a Nightingale Criticism

Keats is in love with a nightingale. He is at a passing play of how to feel happy for witnessing the birds high requiem, or sad for not gentlemans gentleman part of its world. In the first stanza the poet is having clear symptoms of an extreme sadness. His heart aches and a drowsy numbness tune his sense. This heavy mood is paradoxically denounced in the same stanza. Its being too happy in the nightingales happiness thats causing the malaise. The stanza comes to an end in a joyful mood as opposed the heavy start of the poem. He imagines the birds home as any(prenominal) melodious plot of beechen green.Through this synaesthesia he creates a vivid picture of mavin of his classic bowers. The second stanza opens with a plea for a drought of vintage by means of which he open fire fulfill his plea to fade away. This stanza evokes a lot of appeal to the sense of taste, tasting of works and county green. The theme of nature together with a joyful atmosphere is also evident. Dance , and provencal poetry, and sunburnt mirth. From the comfort of the dreamy second stanza, the third plunges the reader into the sad reality and banality of life. The weariness, the fever, and the fuss are a reality that the nightingale doesnt know.Here youth grows pale and beauty give the gatenot keep her shiny eyes. This sombre stanza induces a feeling of a disappointing reality. Its much better to choke to a dream than to this painful truth. This stanza is also a typical example of Keatss obsession with ailment and death. He decides to fly to the nightingales realm. However he wont do this through substance he pondered about in the first two stanzas, but through the viewless go of poesy. This is a eulogy to poetry and its ability to take the reader to the spiritual realm of belief.He joins the nightingale where the trees let no light in except for when the wind moves their branches. The last three lines stress dark and the gloomy colours of mundane existence. In the fifth stanza he cannot see what soft incense hangs upon the boughs. This synaesthesia leads the reader to touch the scent. He is enveloped in embalmed darkness where balm is a sweet smelling scent but he can still imagine all that there in its midst. Through the ethereal eyes of imagination he can see the white hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine.He can see fast fading violets and the musk-rose that is full of dewy wine to make sure we know that this world being describe is the nightingales not the poets. He can also hear the susurrous haunt of flies on summer eves. After experiencing the extreme joy of the nightingales call option he is finding it hard to go moxie to the harsh reality. He is playing with the tempting intellection of an easeful Death. It would be a happy death, now more than ever it seems rich to die, in such ecstasy. But then his thought evolves further and understands that the nightingale would go on singing, and being death he would miss his high requiem.The s witching from reality to fantasy keeps going on. The poet is back in the nightingales realm. It seems that the switch occurred also in his mood. From the rather dark mood of the 6th stanza, the seventh stanza introduces us to a rather jubilant Keats. Hes full of praise for the without end bird whose voice transcends from ancient days. It was heard by emperor and clown, which by chance implies that its song is for everyone. It was heard by Ruth, a biblical figure who has a sad heart to alleviate her pains. Its song charmd magic ceasments of faery which are forlorn and the seas which are perilous.These row hint at the pain described in the first stanza, a pain the poet is trying to escape. This idea of pain introduces us to the next stanza. The same word forlorn wakes him up reminds him of reality. Fancy or imagination is seen as a cheater. He awakes from this delusion understanding where he really belongs. This brings him to question if it all was a vision, or a waking dream? Th is is a reference to the transient and brief nature of imagination, perhaps the poem itself. It was all a momentary euphoria, fled is that music do I wake or calmness, it seems that the vision was too good to be true.