Contrast betweeen the ideal and real in ode to a nightingale
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HOMEWORK HELP > ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE
"John Keats is haunted by the conflict between the ideal world and the real world." Discuss this statement in relation to his poem, "Ode to a Nightingale."
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AMARANG9 | CERTIFIED EDUCATOR
In the real world, Keats (and all of humanity) must deal with the good and the bad. Keats had always been troubled by the notion of death. In the poem, he claims that he does not envy the nightingale, but he does yearn for the nightingale's carefree spirit, not burdened by the notion of death and its own mortality. Keats, speaking in the poem, considers drinking himself into oblivion so that he might "leave the world unseen". In other words, he would like to escape the real world and go to some idealistic place where/when he would not have the burdens he is troubled with.
In the third stanza, he is clear in his wish to forget what the nightingale has never known. He wants to forget his fears and worries:
The weariness, the fever, and the fret,
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, spectre-thin, and dies;
Since he can not escape to an actual ideal world, he will try to escape to an idealistic place in his own mind and through poetry ("poesy"). In the last stanza, after imagining his way to an ideal, he is signaled back to the real world with the word "forlorn". He had managed to imagine his way to the idea of an ideal existence with no burdensome thoughts, but his "fancy" (imagination) is a "deceiving elf". This means that his imagination could only create the illusion of an ideal world. The nightingale's song ("plaintive anthem") represents the ideal world - it fades and seems to have been like a dream. His ideal escape is elusive in that it is only apprehended (experienced) in thought and poetry.
HOMEWORK HELP > ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE
"John Keats is haunted by the conflict between the ideal world and the real world." Discuss this statement in relation to his poem, "Ode to a Nightingale."
print Print
document PDF
list Cite
EXPERT ANSWERS
AMARANG9 | CERTIFIED EDUCATOR
In the real world, Keats (and all of humanity) must deal with the good and the bad. Keats had always been troubled by the notion of death. In the poem, he claims that he does not envy the nightingale, but he does yearn for the nightingale's carefree spirit, not burdened by the notion of death and its own mortality. Keats, speaking in the poem, considers drinking himself into oblivion so that he might "leave the world unseen". In other words, he would like to escape the real world and go to some idealistic place where/when he would not have the burdens he is troubled with.
In the third stanza, he is clear in his wish to forget what the nightingale has never known. He wants to forget his fears and worries:
The weariness, the fever, and the fret,
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, spectre-thin, and dies;
Since he can not escape to an actual ideal world, he will try to escape to an idealistic place in his own mind and through poetry ("poesy"). In the last stanza, after imagining his way to an ideal, he is signaled back to the real world with the word "forlorn". He had managed to imagine his way to the idea of an ideal existence with no burdensome thoughts, but his "fancy" (imagination) is a "deceiving elf". This means that his imagination could only create the illusion of an ideal world. The nightingale's song ("plaintive anthem") represents the ideal world - it fades and seems to have been like a dream. His ideal escape is elusive in that it is only apprehended (experienced) in thought and poetry.
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