Write the critical appreciation of Ode to A Nightingale.

Ans.

Introduction

The poem entitled Ode to A Nightingale is one of the supreme triumphs of lyrical imagination, art and expression in English poetry. It was composed in the spring of 1819. It is highly personal and sensuous. It reflects the tragic experience of poet’s own life. When he composed this poem. his personal miserable life, his frustration and despair resulting from his love-affair with Fanny Brawne, the recent death of his brother, Tom and the emigration of his brother, George with his wife to America, were at the back of his mind. He became all alone by himself. His beloved Fanny Brawne rejected him. At the time of its composition, Keats lived at Wentfort Place, Hampstead with his friend. One morning, he found a nightingale singing in his friend’s garden. Her sweet song provided him the inspiration to compose the loveliest ode.

Thought-Content

To Keats, the nightingale is an immortal bird. Its voice has been heard in ancient days by emperors and clowns. The poet hears the self same song sitting under a palm tree. The song sung by the bird in full throated ease transports the poet to the zenith of ecstasy of joy but the shadow of earthly sorrows and pains never leaves him. The weariness, the fever, the fret and the groans of men and women on the earth makes him unhappy. He cannot share the happiness of the bird unless he forgets himself and flies on the viewless wings of poesy. The song of the bird is so melodious and transporting that he is lost into it. The very personality of the poet melts into it and he wishes to cease upon the midnight with no pain. While the bird is panting forth a rain melody in such an ecstasy, the poet wishes to die. But suddenly, the vision of the poet is broken and that music is fled.

Melancholy in the Poem

The poem exposes the deep agony of the poet’s heart. He is badly tired of his miserable life. He wishes to escape the painful realities of life. His wish to take wine is also inspired by the feeling of getting rid of his disappointing life. When he finds there is no relief from pains of life. He longs for an easeful death:

“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful death.”

The beauty and perfection of the nightingale are presented in complete contrast to the weariness, the fever and the fret of the mortal world:

“Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despair,

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow.”

Sensuous Word-Pictures

All the five senses are fully gratified in the poem. The smell of musk, taste of wine, cold touch of dew and warm touch of summer, layering of murmur and sight of the beautiful scene makes these lines an ideal example of sensuousness :

“The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.”

Lyrical Flow

In the richness of his sensuous experiences, he sings like his own nightingale spontaneously and intensely. He pants forth a lyrical flood of divine rapture in the following lines:

“Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring fourth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!”

Form and Diction

The poem consists of eight stanzas, each stanza having ten lines. Each line is set in an iambic pentameter except the eight one which is set in trimeter. He compresses his expressions within the design with the help of epithets like light-winged, beechen green, shadows numberless, full-throated ease, purple-stained, leaden-eyed, embalmed darkness, murmurous haunt, etc. He embellishes his expression with the help of figures of speech-similes, personifications, alliterations and onomatopoeias. Keats uses highly dignified language in the poem. Suggestiveness is used with perfection in the following lines:

“The same that oft-times hath

Charm’d magic casements, opening on the form

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.”