What is the meaning of Ode to a Nightingale?
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.
What is easeful death?
When he says he has “been half in love with easeful Death,” he temporarily looks at death also as an escape from the reality of facing his own immortality. He has only been “half” in love with death because it was a fleeting thought that death was an escape from thoughts of death.
What word is like a bell to the speaker in Stanza VIII?
In the eighth stanza, the word forlorn tolls like a bell to restore the speaker from his preoccupation with the nightingale and back into himself.
What thoughts about death does the speaker have in stanza 6?
The speaker whispers sweet nothings to death. And by whisper we mean, “writes rhyming poetry about.” Yeah. It’s true: Keats was obsessed with the idea of death, and he often wrote about it.
Where but is full of sorrow meaning?
Lines 27-28. Where but to think is to be full of sorrow. And leaden-eyed despairs, The world is a place where any kind of thinking leads to depressing thoughts and worries. There are no thoughts that can ultimately bring joy or peace: thinking itself is the problem.
What longing is expressed by the poet in the second stanza?
In the second stanza, the speaker longs for the oblivion of alcohol, expressing his wish for wine, “a draught of vintage,” that would taste like the country and like peasant dances, and let him “leave the world unseen” and disappear into the dim forest with the nightingale.
When youth grows pale and Spectre-thin and dies?
In this ode, the transience of life and the tragedy of old age (“where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, / Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies”) is set against the eternal renewal of the nightingale’s fluid music (“Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!”).
What does the word forlorn mean in this verse forlorn The very word is like a bell?
the very word is like a bell. To toil me back from thee to my sole self! Oh, no! Why did he have to use the word “forlorn?” It reminds the speaker of how he has also been abandoned – by the nightingale itself.
Why might the lover in stanza II grieve Why does the speaker advise him not to grieve?
The speaker says that the piper’s “unheard” melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time. He tells the youth that, though he can never kiss his lover because he is frozen in time, he should not grieve, because her beauty will never fade.
Why does the speaker long to join the nightingale?
Hearing the song of the nightingale, the speaker longs to flee the human world and join the bird. His first thought is to reach the bird’s state through alcohol—in the second stanza, he longs for a “draught of vintage” to transport him out of himself.
What does leaden eyed mean?
heavy-eyed
leaden-eyed in British English (ˌlɛdənˈaɪd) literary. heavy-eyed; dull-eyed. Collins English Dictionary.
