Keats' odes and their themes

Romanticism in Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale"

John Keats is one of the most renown of the Romantic poets. His style, structure, and attitude toward poetry propelled him into the literary world at a fast pace. His poem, "Ode to a Nightingale," demonstrates some of the most popular criteria of Romantic poetry, which are a "persistent reference to nature and natural objects, inanimate self-revelation of the poet, and direct expression of strong, personal emotion" (Perkins 8). In "Ode to a Nightingale," we see a strong sense of imagination emphasized by contradictions, the beauty of nature in the bird's song, the self-revelation and personal emotion that the song brings to the poet. The elements of this poem make it a classic from the annals of Romantic literature.

This strong personal emotion, or imagination, is something Keats held in high regard. Keats was a poet that lost himself in the act of poetry, believing that the true poet lost his identity while writing. "Ode to a Nightingale" is no doubt a poem in which the poet loses himself. It is a nature poem in that the bird's song inspires the poet to think on things not of this world. His heart "aches" (Keats 1) and his senses are drowsy and numb (1) by the experience. Almost immediately, the poet enters into a sublime world. There is a pain in the simple beauty as the poet considers the bird singing among the leaves where just underneath "men sit and hear each other moan" (24). The poet also considers the fact that his imagination will "cheat" (73) him as he allows himself to fall under the spell of the bird's song. Here we see the self-revelation in the poem, which brings the poet to think of an "easeful death" (52) that might allow him to escape the suffering of this world. The poet undergoes a symbolic death as he considers drinking hemlock. The poet yearns for a "long age in the deep-delved earth" (12) and a "beaker full of the warm South" (15) that would allow him to leave this world.

He thinks of leaving "the world unseen/and with the fade away into the forest dim" (19-20) and tells the bird that he "will fly to thee" (31) on the wings of poetry itself. Life and death are immersed in the song of the nightingale as the poet wrestles with his imagination.