Question

what is the effect of nightingale 's song on its listeners

Answer 1

The primary experience that the speaker undergoes as a result of hearing the song in the poem is to activate his/ her own moral imagination. Not understanding the words or lyrics to the song, the speaker begins to wonder what could be the basis for singing and, in the process, helps to develop the speaker's own sensation of what might be from what is. Some of the thoughts which enter the speaker's moral imagination is that the song could be one of "old, unhappy, far off things" or "battles" that have been waged. The fact remains that the speaker does not fully know what is being sung or what the words mean, but it can mean so much to the speaker and in the final analysis, this activation of imagination becomes its overall effect.