ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE - Best Online Coaching SSC … TO A NIGHTINGALE •About John Keats •Parents died young •Brother Tom died of Tuberculosis •John Keats later fell in love

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

About John Keats

Parents died young

Brother Tom died of Tuberculosis

John Keats later fell in love with

Fanny Brawne

She left him because of John Keats

illness

DIED AT THE AGE OF 25

THE ERA

As a term to cover the most distinctive writers who flourished in the

last years of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th,

Romantic

WHAT EXACTLY IS AN ODE?

A lyric poem, typically one in the form of an

address to a particular subject

NIGHTINGALE

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE (STANZA 1)

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

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"Hemlock" is the poison that the Greek philosopher Socrates took when he was put to death

for corrupting the youth.

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Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk

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In Greek mythology, "Lethe" was a river in Hades (the Underworld) that made people forget

all their memories if they drank from it.

If you drain a glass or cup, you drink all the liquid in it.


'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,

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Now we know that the speaker must be addressing the nightingale of the title.

He wants to clarify that the pain he feels is not because he is jealous of the bird's happiness. Instead, he is excessively happy for the bird's happiness.

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That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

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In Greek mythology, a "dryad" is a nymph (female spirit) that lives in the trees.

Doing something as well and with as much energy as they can


O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

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

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The speaker longs for a drink of wine or some other spirit that has been kept cool

deep in the earth. "Vintage" wine is made from grapes from the same harvest

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Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!

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Flora - the plants of a particular region


O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

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Hippocrene is the "fountain of the Muses," a group of eight women (again,

in Greek mythology) who inspire struggling poets. The fountain bubbles

up out of the earth where Pegasus, the famous flying horse, is supposed to

have dug his hoof into the ground.

He wants to drink something that will make him a great poetand that'll

get him drunk. The liquid from the Hippocrene is "blushful" because it is

reddish, the colour of both wine and a blush.


With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth

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That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim

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He wants to get drunk on this magical wine so that he can leave the

"world" without anyone noticing and just "fade" into the dark forest with

the nightingale.


Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

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The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

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The world is full of tired and "weary" people, sickness ("fever"), and

massive stress ("fret"). He reduces all of society down to one

depressingly exaggerated image: people sitting around and listen to

each other "groan" and complain.


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

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

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Palsy is a disease the causes sudden involuntary movements

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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 to-morrow.

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Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

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Bacchus, the Greek god of wine, or any of Bacchus's buddies ("pards")

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But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards

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Posey poetry


Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne

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Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

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the greenness of growing vegetation verdurous


I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

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But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine

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Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves


Darkling I listen; and, for many a timeI have been half in love with easeful Death,

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Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

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Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

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While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

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Ecstasy - an overwhelming feeling of great happiness or joyful excitement.


Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down

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The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown

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Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn

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The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.


Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toil me back from thee to my sole self!

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Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

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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:

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Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:Do I wake or sleep?

DIFFICULT WORDS

Mirth - laughter, humour, or happiness

His presence was a source of mirth for all of us.

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Groan - Make a deep inarticulate sound conveying pain, despair,

pleasure, etc

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Fret - to be nervous or worried

He fretted about the rising tuition fees.

DIFFICULT WORDS

Throne - seat of state, royal seat

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Verdure - Lush green vegetation

I entered the forest and was awe struck by the lush verdure

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Ecstasy - an overwhelming feeling of great happiness or joyful

excitement

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DIFFICULT WORDS

Plaintive - Sounding sad and mournful

When the poet was heartbroken, he wrote plaintive

poems that echoed his own sorrow.

Ode to a Nightingale is about

(a) Mortality and transience

(b) Parody of a farewell speech

(c) Positive influence of the memories of a

dear friend

(d) A malecentered world

Documents

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE - Best Online Coaching SSC … TO A NIGHTINGALE •About John Keats •Parents died young •Brother Tom died of Tuberculosis •John Keats later fell in love