Write the substance and explanation of the poem entitled Ode to A

Write the substance and explanation of the poem entitled Ode to A Nightingale.

Ans.

Substance of the Poem

The poet is happy in the happiness of the nightingale as the bird is singing of summer at her full-throated ease. It gives an impression of the poet that the world of the nightingale must be free from the faints of misery and pains. He wants a draught of vintage, some old wine so that he may forget all that the nightingale does not know. The wine will transport the poet into the valley of flowers. Here is a contrast between the actual and the imaginary. The imaginary world of the nightingale is free from all that the actual is full of. The world of men is full of weariness, the fever and the fret. Here the people sit and hear each other groan. They tell tales of misfortunes to one another. Disease and death overtake one. Even a youngman grows pale and dies. Beautiful women cannot keep their beauty and no one can love them next day. The poet has powerful sense-perception. In the dark forest, he can well guess each sweet flower that grows and blooms at the time of the season. It is a very happy moment for him to die. He has already been half in love with death. Now it is the right time. Listening to the happy song of the happy bird, he will breathe his last with no pain. His own death reminds him of the fact that human beings will come and go but the song of the bird will go on forever. It will ever be a source of joy and comfort to the sad and miserable mankind as it has been in the past.

Explanations

(1) My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My senses, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe wards had sunk:

Reference to the Context: These lines have been extracted from Keats’ masterpiece poem Ode to a Nightingale. This poem was written in early months of 1819. During his stay to his friend Brown, Keats found that a nightingale built her nest in the garden. He felt a tranquil and continual joy in its song and composed a poem containing his poetic feelings about the song of the nightingale.

Here the poet presents an excess of joy and happiness, occasioned by the bird’s song, that produces the mood of languor in the poet.

Explanation: The poet is highly impressed by the song of the nightingale. It is strongly effective. The song fills his mind with excess of joy which makes an intoxicating effect. His heart experiences a sensation of pain. His body is benumbed and paralyzed. It is as if he had drunk a benumbing poison, or only a moment ago drunk every drop of a drug whose effect is to benumb the senses and to blunt the feelings. His mind is completely lost in the state of forgetfulness. He feels like one who has drunk the water of the River of Forgetfulness and become completely indifferent to his surroundings. The song of the nightingale makes him unconscious of the present.

Critical Comments: 1. Hemlock: A deadly poison. It is notable that Socrates was killed by being made to drink hemlock.

2. Lethe-wards: A river in Hades, the underworld in Greek mythology. The water of Lethe produces forgetfulness. The souls of the dead drink its water and forget their earthly life.

3. The poet’s regarding the nightingale’s song as the symbol of perfect joy and perfect art.

(2) O for a draught of vintage ! That hath been

Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora, and the country green,

Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth !

Reference to the Context: As above. Here the poet craves for a drink of some marvelous wine brewed in the warm, gay and mirthful regions of France, or a large cup of red wine fetched from the fountain of the Muses so that he might get rid of worldly sorrows and escape to the happy world of nightingale.

Explanation: The poet is entirely fed up with the miseries of his life. He wishes to forget these miseries with the help of wine. He is willing to be happy like the nightingale. He expresses a desire to drink a draught of strong wine which is made of grapes and which has been cooled for a long time deep under the earth. Under the heavy intoxication of wine, he wants to enjoy a green land which is full of colourful and beautiful flowers. The old wine will also remind him of the green vegetation of the countryside and of the dancing, music, merry-making, feasting of the sun-burnt peasants of Provence which is known for its fun, jollity and wines.

Critical Comments: 1. Here we find an example of Keats’ sensuous ness. Keats is pre-eminently the poet of the senses. Lines 11-14 describe a delicious vintage and call up a picture of feasting, merry-making and singing of a carefree people.

2. ‘Sun-burnt mirth’ combines the idea of the sun’s warmth with the warmth of joy in the merry makers.

3. Flora: In Greek mythology, Flora is the goddess of flowers.

(3) Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret.

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow.

Reference to the Context: As above. Here the poet tells us the miseries, sufferings and sorrows of human life. He presents a graphic picture of worries, woes, diseases and groans of the mortal world of the nightingale.

Explanation: Keats imagines the world of a nightingale is perfect. It knows no fear, sorrow and suffering. Nightingale remains hidden in leaves and does not know the bitter disappointments which make human life a curse. The mortal human beings are badly tired of their lives. The tiredness is caused by disappointments and bitterness of failure. The worldly men are completely materialistic. They are ever pining for worldly things and chasing the unattainable things when their desires remain unfulfilled, they are filled with utter grief and become the victims of depression. The poet wishes to melt away from the world of human beings, and to escape into the trees where he can forget life’s sorrows and misfortunes from which the nightingale is quite free. He wishes to forget the fatigue, the depressing and tiresome conditions of life, and the anxieties and cares of the world where people are constantly suffering from sorrows and uttering cries of pain. Old, disappointed, gray-headed men are afflicted with palsy. Young men decline, wither grow thin like skeletons, and die. A moment’s reflection induces a mood of sadness in a human being, and he fails into a mood of hopelessness. Even beauty and love become the cause of grief. Neither beauty nor love is faithful. There is great want of inward beauty which is called the beauty of virtues. Apparent beauty, being deceitful, loses its lustre within a short period. Beautiful women cannot retain the brightness of their eyes for long, and the passion of youthful lovers has only a short duration. Love, being selfish and faithless turns into disloyal and neglecting the old, aspires to enjoy the sweet company of a new one.

Critical Comments: 1. Very pessimistic and pathetic lines.

2. The weariness… fret This is an admirable line summing up the feeling of disappointment, the sense of disillusionment, the mood of despair and the weight of worries.

(4) Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam’d to do deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music :-Do I wake or sleep?

Reference to the Context: As above. Here the word ‘forlorn’ acts on the poet’s mind like the ringing of an alarm bell and reminds him of his own forlorn condition. He comes to know that he is moving back from the region of poetic fancy to the common world of reality.

Explanation: The song of the nightingale transports the poet’s mind into the realm of imagination. After a short while the charm of imagination breaks and the poet comes back to his painful realities of human life. The word forlorn breaks his dream. He curses imagination for its lack of strength. The use of the word “forlorn’ comes like a shock to the poet. The sound of this word is like the sound of a bell which breaks the spell and which brings the poet back from the company of the nightingale to his lonely self. The imagination of a poet cannot create durable illusions as it is supposed to do. The poetic imagination is just like a deceptive fairy. The poet bids farewell to the bird’s sad song because it is departing, and is therefore, becoming more and more distant. It seems to him that the song is now reaching him from the fields nearby. The next moment, the song has become a little more distant. And then it seems still more distant. Finally, it is completely lost among the open spaces of the valley. The song is now no longer audible. The poet, therefore, wonders whether it was an actual song or he was merely seeing a vision.

Critical Comments: 1. The repetition of the word ‘Forlorn’ is like the ringing of a bell to break his dream and bring him back to the state of fever and fret.

2. Keats’ realism.

3. Sensuous word picture.

4. Here the poet considers the nightingale’s song a plaintive anthem because he has been recalled to reality and has, therefore, received something of a shock.