CC - IX: Summary of John Keats Ode to a Nightingale

 

            

        John Keats' ode to a nightingale is remarkable for this intensity but this intensity is completely of the negative kind. In other words, the attitude of the poet in this ode is anything but positive. It is a poem of ‘despair 'and this is emphasized by the use of the word in its plural form with the striking compound 'leaden-eyed' as its epithet. The subject of this ode is not the bird but an aspiration towards “a life of beauty away from the oppressive world”. The poem shows a marked contrast between two words-the real and the mortality and the ideal and the immortality – represented by the poet and the song of the nightingale respectively.

             In the beginning the poet feels a pain in his  heart(“my heart aches…”), thereby suggesting the immediate impact (i.e. painful) on the nightingale's song. The pain soon subsides into a sensation of numbness, and the effect of the song is equated with that of poison -hemlock and opiate -that deadens consciousness. To be precise, the first four lines recorded a deathlike trance, the process of dying into life. The next six line analyze the poet’s own experience and the nature of the bird's ecstasy. It is curious to note that through the poet specifically mentions he is not envious of the bird's ‘happy lot', but this is  exactly what he seems to be. His self-scrutiny indicates his desire to share the bird’s untroubled happiness. He feels a heart-ache through excess of joy and wishes to escape into the world of the bird by annihilating his own identify. And this aspiration to share the bird's ecstasy leads him inevitably along the dark, mysterious journey that alone can ensure his accession to the joyous arcadia. The journey, however, remains uncompleted, and we note a gradual return of consciousness.

                   In stanza 2 the poet wants to get rid of his unhappiness through the artificial stimulus of wine - "O, for a draught of vintage ....". No ordinary wine will serve his purpose. The fragrance of flowers, the luxuriance of spring ("Tasting of Flora and the country green"), The warmth of the southern Climate ("O for a Beaker full of the Warm south"), dance and Provencal song ( a reference to the medieval troubadours of southern France) are, as it were, distilled into the rich essence of the wine that the poet prays for. And this wine also receives a heightening effect by being linked to the inspirational waters of Hippocrene.

                     The third stanza, with its grim picture of actuality, clarifies the poet's need for and the urgency of his mind's release from the mortal condition. The entire stanza is about the poet's world- Weariness, Life is a Weary journey for him-"The weariness, the fever, and the fret". His is a real world  "Where youth grows pale, and specter-thin and dies; | Where but to think is to be full of sorrow | And leaden-eyed despairs;".  Brief is life's hour and everything is transient mortal beauty and love are ephemeral-"Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, | or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow". It is a picture of a veritable inferno. And that's why, he seeks an escape into an eternal present, a release from flux, from the world of process.

                 But now he dispenses with external stimulants like wine and relies on the potency of the mind's inner resources, on his own imaginative powers("On the viewless wings of poesy"). The old antithesis between reason and imagination reappears ("the dull brain perplexes and retards"), but the poet finds himself transported to the vicinity of the nightingale ("already with thee"), by the magic of poetry. And it is the magic of poetry that transforms the poet's words into things of beauty-"... tender is the night....".

         The tenderness of the night spills all over stanza 5 and the lines are suffused with the dark, fragrant moisture peculiar to a nocturnal forest- summarized to perfection in the expression "embalmed darkness". The idea of death, implicit in "embalmed darkness", is made explicit in stanza 6. The poet's death-wish gets the better of his will to live. After 'life's fitful fever', death would be 'easeful' indeed. And it is more so in the case of the poet while listening to the rapturous song of the nightingale-"Now more than ever than ever seems it rich to die".

                        The mortality-immortality contrast is beautifully underscored by the poet in stanza 7 -"Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! | No hungry generations tread thee down". The bird is the inheritor of the great tradition of timelessness. The song of the bird (which the poet enjoys presently) had charmed the men and women of the past. Men and Women, whether in the days of history("emperor and clown"), the Old testament ('Ruth') or in the middle ages(captive damsel) come and go, appear and vanish, but the Bird stays on : the immortal witness to human mortality, the perennial spectator of mundane transience. Life is mortal, but art is immortal.

                                    In the ultimate stanza, the world 'forlorn' drags the poet back from the world of imagination into the world of reality. The whole edifice built up with agonized imaginative effort crumbles with a harsh suddenness. And the poem ends on a note of ambivalence. The poet is in a wavering state.  He is caught between the two poles-the world of reality and the world of romance. He cannot really decide which state (real or imaginary) is higher and acceptable. And it is suggested in his final query - "Was it a vision, or a walking dream? |  ...Do I wake or sleep?"

------------------