ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE BY DEZEREA BUCHANAN TAKELIA

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE BY: DEZEREA BUCHANAN & TAKELIA RAYBORN

BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN KEATS � A revered English poet whose short life spanned just 25 years, John Keats was born October 31, 1795, in London, England. He was the oldest of Thomas and Frances Keats’ four children. Keats lost his parents at an early age. He was eight years old when his father, a livery stablekeeper, was killed after being trampled by a horse. His father's death had a profound effect on the young boy's life. In a more abstract sense, it shaped Keats' understanding for the human condition, both its suffering and its loss. This tragedy and others helped ground Keats' later poetry—one that found its beauty and grandeur from the human experience.

� that found its beauty and grandeur from the human experience. In a more mundane sense, Keats' father's death greatly disrupted the family's financial security. His mother, Frances, seemed to have launched a series of missteps and mistakes after husband’s death; she quickly remarried and just as quickly lost a good portion of the family's wealth. After her second marriage fell apart, Frances left the family, leaving her children in the care

Biography of John Keats Con’t She eventually returned to her children's life, but her life was in tatters. In early 1810, she died of tuberculosis. During this period, Keats found solace and comfort in art and literature. At Enfield Academy, where he started shortly before his father's passing, Keats proved to be a voracious reader. He also became close to the school's headmaster, John Clarke, who served as a sort of a father figure to the orphaned student and encouraged Keats' interest in literature. John Keats later died from tuberculosis, which is the same disease that took his mother’s life.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND � This poem was in fact written during the romantic period. The romantic period originated in England in 1798, but later spread to France and Germany. This era is known for emphasizing everything that the previous era did not. Feelings, emotions, heart vs. head. Natural beings took over all.

Summary � Keats is in a state of uncomfortable drowsiness. Envy of the imagined happiness of the nightingale is not responsible for his condition; rather, it is a reaction to the happiness he has experienced through sharing in the happiness of the nightingale. The bird's happiness is conveyed in its singing. Keats longs for a draught of wine which would take him out of himself and allow him to join his existence with that of the bird. The wine would put him in a state in which he would no longer be himself, aware that life is full of pain, that the young die, the old suffer, and that just to think about life brings sorrow and despair. But wine is not needed to enable him to escape. His In the

Summary Con't darkness he listens to the nightingale. Now, he feels, it would be a rich experience to die, "to cease upon the midnight with no pain" while the bird would continue to sing ecstatically. Many a time, he confesses, he has been "half in love with easeful Death. " The nightingale is free from the human fate of having to die. The song of the nightingale that he is listening to was heard in ancient times by emperor and peasant. Perhaps even Ruth (whose story is told in the Old Testament) heard it.

Summary "Forlorn, " the last word of the preceding stanza, brings Keats in the concluding stanza back to consciousness of what he is and where he is. He cannot escape even with the help of the imagination. The singing of the bird grows fainter and dies away. The experience he has had seems so strange and confusing that he is not sure whether it was a vision or a daydream. He is even uncertain whether he is asleep or awake.

Thesis Statement � In this poem John Keats speaker attempts to use a nightingale as means of escaping the realities of human life. Throughout the poem Keats gradually discovers the concepts of creative expression and the morality of human life. The speaker is in search of the freedom that the nightingale so elegantly sings about. The nightingale's song of freedom is an expression of pure.

Theme and Tone � Theme- John Keats speaker begins his fullest and deepest exploration of theme’s of creative expression and the mortiality of human life. � Tone- Happy, which later turns into confusion/ sadness.

Cite Example’s Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain Thou wast not born or death immortal bird ! Adieu! Thy plaintive anthem fades

Analyze Words that came out in the text that stood out to us are as follows: Ø Vain Ø Fly Ø Death Ø Quiet breath Ø Immortal Ø Forlorn

Figurative language The main image in Keats ode is the nightingale which serves as a metaphor for the immortal life/ In this ode, the Keats uses many metaphors such as, the using of the metaphorical wings in his saying, "Away! For I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy” Another figurative language that Keats uses is simile which is clear in his saying, "My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk" In these two lines, Keats is comparing his dullness pain with the feeling of a drunk man or one that gets drug to forget his pain and live at that moment in happiness.

Poem Interperpatation We felt that Keats tried to prove to the audience that, Poetry is Immortal, contrary to human life. We feel he compares the song of the nightingale to poetry. This explains him wanting to become drunk, however deciding to use his poetry to live on with the bird. “ Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy”

Conclusion � John Keats attempts to use a nightingale as means of escaping the realities of human life. He wants to live on with nightingale, and chooses to use poetry to do so. The way Keats composed the uses of figurative language is remarkable. He creates an imagery that makes you feel for him.