Graduate Course
PAPER VI
English Literature III
John Keats
CONTENTS
1. Romanticism
2. (a) "On Looking Into Chapman's Homer" (The Poem)
(b) A Study of the Poem
3. (a) "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (The Poem)
(b) A Study of the Poem
4. Keat's Odes
5. (a) "Ode to a Nightingale" (The Poem)
(b) A Study of the Poem
6. Some Critical Views on "Ode to A Nightingale"
(a)
Keats—"Ode To A Nightingale :Cleanth Brooks
(b)
"Ode to. A Nightingale" : David Parkin
7. (a) "To Autumn" (The Poem)
(b) A Study of the Poem
8. Critical Views on "To Autumn" : Leonard Urger
9. A Bibliography
Prepared, Compiled and Edited by :
K. Ojha
SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING
University of Delhi
5, Cavalry Lane, Delhi – 110007
Academic Session 2016-17 (700 Copies)
For limited circulation only
Published by : Executive Director, School of Open Learning, 5 Cavalry Lane, Delhi-110007
Printed at: Berry Art Press A-9, Mayapuri Phase-1 New Delhi -110064
1-Romanticism
We cannot accept the argument that the Romantic Movement started in England with the French
Revolution, the Nepoleonic wars and the domestic reforms. Some critics argue that the term Romantic is
not an appropriate adjective or epithet for the noetry written from the last quarters of the eighteenth
century to mid-nineteenth century. It is because the word has many variants and it has been pravelent since
the mid seventeenthcentury. It then implied "Me fabulous, the extravagant, the fictitious and the unreal".
But almost after seventy or eighty years the word Romantic was used to describe 'the pleasing scenes in
"romantic" fiction and poety.' Later the term Romanticism was applied to 'resurgence of instinct and
emotion' which could not be suppressed by the 'rationalism' of the 18th century and a low key of revolt
could be heard in some literary works.
The words Romantic and Romanticism applied to or used for a literary trend in English literature of
the last quarter of 18th and mid-nineteenth century refer to various tendencies. In English literature
Romanticism 'was informal and almost wholly unattached to any doctrinaire programme'.
In the works of some of the romanticists, who rebelled against the classical rules of composition, we
find a combination of classical and romantic elements.
Some romanticists are "amorous of the far", they try to escape from the familiar or real world of
sufferings, pain and mutability to an imaginary world. They get pleasure in creating 'marvellous' and
'abnormal'. The range of imaginative flight captured by the romantic writers is very wide and expansive.
They have at times attempted to associate the remote with the familiar, and are often "true to the kindred
points of heaven and home". In his effort to create a world of Beauty or a utopia a romantic poet may
move from "the most trivial literary fantasy to the most exalted mysticism". His world of imagination
may be 'above and beyond the sensuous phenomenal world'. His imaginative creations are 'forms more
real than living man', To poets like Coleridge "willing suspension of disbelief" constitutes the poetic
faith. At times in the romantic poetry the 'intuition' dominates so powerfully that the experience
becomes mystical. To Wordsworth this experience is "that blessed and serene mood" in which "the
burden of mystery" is lightened and he is able to see "into the life of things.' Blake constantly lived "this
visionary ecstasy" and felt that the "vegetable universe" is really "a shadow of that real world which is
the Imagination."
Most Romantic poets are concerned with the role of Imagination in creativity and obliquely or directly
propounded their poetic theories. In the preface to the Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth professes that his
aim has been "to choose incidents and situations from common life and to relate or describe them, ...as
far as possible, in a selection of language really used by men...at the same time, to throw over them a
certain colouring of imagination, where by ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an
unusual aspect." According to him "the essential passions of the heart find better soil" "in humble and
rustic life", in them "our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity", and their passions
"are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature." Justifying the use of the common
men's language he asserts that "they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated
expressions." So Wordsworth felt that imagination gives a colouring of novelty and mystery to the natural
emotions and passions, and "all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of feelings". Poetry must not
only enlighten the understanding of the Reader, but also strengthen and purify his affections.
Wordsworth argues that a poet is "a man speaking to men: a man...endowed with more live!y
sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness...a greater knowledge of human nature and a more
comprehensive soul...a man pleased with his own passion and volitions and who rejoices...in the spirit
of life that is in him: delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings on
the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them." Wordsworth
considers nature and man as essentially adapted to each other. "Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all
knowledge...Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge—it is as immortal as the heart of man." Since "the
poet thinks and feels in the spirit of human passion," Wordsworth asserts "he must express himself as other
men express themselves" Wordsworth rejects the straightjacket meters and poetic diction used by the
eighteenth century classicists and Rationalists, because poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings; and its takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity".
Coleridge opposed certain arguments of Wordsworth on grounds that Poetry cannot all the time select
the real language of men (men in low and rustic life). A poet has to adopt, modify and at times
create a new language to convey his passions, feelings and reactions. Moreover there is no common or
real language of men. Every man's language has its individualities, common properties of the class to
which he belongs and words and phrases of universal use. Coleridge selected his subjects not only trom
real life experiences but also from various sources and he presented the supernatural, mystical, or
mysterious in such a way that nothing seemed `unreal' or 'fantasy'. He attempted to make the
unbelievable believable, the unreal real. His was an effort to win the confidence of the Reader so that
he is compelled to accept without any doubt the veracity or reality of the poetic presentation. Coleridge
believed in "willing suspension of disbelief".
Shelley propounded "to be a poet is to apprehend the time and the beautiful...the good which exists
in the relation, subsisting first between existence and perception, and secondly between
perception and expressions...poets or those who imagine and express the indestructible order are not
only the authors of language and of music, of the dance and architecture, and statuary and painting, they
are the institutions of laws and the founders of civil society and the inventors of arts of life and the
teachers who draw into a certain propinquity with the beautiful and the true, that particular apprehension
of the agencies of the invisible world which is called religion. Hence all original religions are
allegorical, or susceptible of allegory, and like Janus have a double face of false and true.
Poets...were called in the earlier epoch of the world, legislators or prophets; a poet essentially
comprises and unites both these characters. For he not only beholds intensely the present as it is,
and discovers those laws according to which the present things ought to be ordered, but he beholds the
future in the present, and his thoughts are germs of the flower and fruit of latest time...A poet
participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one...Language, colour, form and religious and civil habits
of action are all the instruments and material of poetry...A poem is the very image of life in its eternal
truth. Poetry is ever accompanied with pleasure, all spirits on which it falls open themselves to receive
the wisdom which is mingled with its delight...A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness, and sings to
cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen
musician, who fee) that they are moved and softened yet know not whence or why...Poetry is the record
of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds...Poetry...makes immortal all that is best
and most beautiful in the world...Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in
man...Poetry turns all things to loveliness, it exalts the beauty of that which is most beautiful, and it
adds beauty to that which is most deformed; it marries exultation and horror, grief and pleasure,
eternity and change; it subdues to union under its ought yoke all irreconcilable things. It
transmutes all that it touches, and every form moving within the radiance of its presence is changed
by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it breathes...it strips the veil of familiarity
from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty, which is the spirit of its forms...A poet,
as he is the author to others of the highest wisdom, pleasure, virtue and glory, so he ought personally to
be the happiest, the best, the wisest, and the most illustrious of men...Poets are the hierophants of an
unapprehended inspiration; the mirror of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the
words which express what they understood not, the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what
they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged
legislators of the world." (A Defence of Poetry by P.B. Shelley).
It is in his letters Keats speculates on art and life. His letters constitute "a set of developing ideas"
not "a closed philosophical system." He believes that knowledge should be acquired not by abstract
analysis but thorough senses, the heart and the imagination. In his letter to Bailey (22nd Nov. 1817,
Letters I 183-87) he explains that Men of Genius, unlike, Men of Power "are great as certain ethereal
chemicals operating on the Mass of neutral Intellect—(but) they have not any individuality and
determined character "any" "proper self'. From the later definition of "negative capability and "the
poetical character" (Letters 1, 193-94, 386-87) it is clear that Keats is here thinking of mind, which,
impartially open to all impressions, acts imaginatively, yet imperceptibly, and effects its changes like a
2
catalyst without imposing its own characteristics and preferences—a disinterested mind which does not
seek to dominate others through dogmas or rules of conduct. He believes in "the holiness of the
Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination—what the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be
truth, whether it existed before or not—for I have the same idea of all our Passion as of Love
they' are all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty." (Letters 1, 184). Keats believed that
whatever is beautiful is as real as a fact known to be true. "Truth" means to him "reality" and "what
the imagination seizes as Beauty" is never a mere fantasy divorced from reality. Yet the imagination
transcends everyday reality because it has power to create something which has ever existed or not.
Imagination by perceiving an existent object as beautiful, announces it as "a truth", by creating beauty
where there was none before it establishes a new truth, a new reality. Keats obliquely rejects mimetic
theory of art. Imagination's creation of truth is beauty: Keats's Grecian urn is not a particular urn but a
truthful and beautiful creation of his imagination. By a life of sensation, Keats meant, the life of
imagination, 'a life solidly grounded in bygone events of eye, ear, palate etc. but modifying, refining and
ramifying them into infinitely complex, chains of (association).' Based on his own experience the fruit of the
poet's imagination must be truth.
Keats also speculates on how the life of sensation provides the materials for happiness in the 'here
after', where, "we shall enjoy ourselves...by having what we called happiness on Earth repeated in a finer
tone and so repeated." 'The wider the range of our sensations on earth, the more scope the imagination
acquires to produce in the beyond a happiness which is a more refined version of the terrestrial
variety...the imagination though rooted in experience, is not confined to experience,' it may create
heavenly happiness not realized on the earth, just as it creates worldly beauty which did not exist
before. Keats's mind, which lives on sensation alone, does not permit the thought of bliss interfere with
the momentary sensation. Keats writes "I look not for it (happiness) if it be not in the present hour,
nothing startles me beyond the moment". Keats had the sympathetic imagination that allowed him to
participate in the life of another. Keats asserts that "negative capability" must be an intrinsic characteristic
of imagination. According to him a man of imagination, who has no "determined character", no "proper
self" can look into the heart of a thing and participate in its life. He is opposed to "consecutive reasoning
"which can never enable us to know" truth, the reasoning process has its faults. Keats has faith in
"Hearts' affections and the truth of Imagination." Since a poet is "certain of nothing" but these two
(Truth and Beauty), or, as he says elsewhere, "never, can feel certain of any truth but from a clear
perception of its Beauty" (Letters 11, 19), Keats did not agree with Bailey's concept of logical reasoning
but was tolerant enough not to vehemently reject it.
In his letter to George and Tom of Dec 21, 1817, he says that the quality that formed a Man of
Achievement especially in literature and which Shakespeare possessed is Negative Capability. He defines
this capability as of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any effort to reach out after fact
and reason "With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration or rather obliterates
all considerations" (Letters 1-193-94).
The imaginative mind has negative capability. It accepts uncertainties and doubts, that is, it believes in the
recognition of the opponents' point of view. Mysteries suggests not only an extraordinary experience but
also an association "with a higher mode of existence, with divine revelation," with what is accessible to
the imagination. `The quest for certainty is irritable, for it leads to dogmatism and failure'. "Fact and
reason" can carry us up to a point and no further. We should be content with "half-knowledge". The
"negative capability" accepts —fine isolated verisimilitude' without bothering about "proven facts". 'The
great poet comes close to negative capability, because his only criterion..of truth is beauty'.
In his letter to Bailey Keats writes that passion is "the creative of essential Beauty" and in his letter
to Tom and George he shows how beautiful painting or play arouses passion, through intensity. Keats's
theories of imagination and Negative Capability were influenced by William Hazlitt
"For Keats the. beauty in a work of art (its truth imaginatively conceived) harmonises all discordant
qualities by means of a process of concentration and refinement compelling us to submit to its full sensuous
impact, which enhance enrich and intensify experience." A good work of art, whether it is a poem, a
painting or a play, arouses a feeling as overpowering as sexual passion. When Keats writes 'the painting
3
may cause a swelling into reality' he perhaps implies that the face in the painting takes a third dimension.
Keats associates swelling with ripening (in Endymion 1 839, II 59, III 799 and "To Autumn") and the
word has undertones of fulfillment. What dog he mean by "reality". The reality is that of the actual
world of natural process, where flowers and human faces, which bloom and fade, are alive. In a great
work painted or sculptured objects like the dead and forzen figures 'ori a Grecian urn seem to come to
life under art's intensity.
"Art captures reality in its most poignant moments and thus enriches our experience. It also creates a
new reality which transcends everyday actuality. By means of a process analoguous to distillation in
chemistry, and yet imaginative and beyond the comprehension of consecutive reasoning an audience is
able to experience a pleasurable what would be painful in real life." Even when a work of art depicts
evil, evil cannot be an issue because "the sense of beauty overcomes all other considerations." Keats stresses
the open, patient and imaginative approach of the negative capability. Mental growth cannot be forced on
poetry, as in nature everything comes to fruition in its own good time. Keats says "If poetry comes not
as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all." (Letters I, 238-39). He hates poetry that
has a palpable design upon us and stresses 'the anulling self' (Letter 1, 325) the poet must live in the
subject described and bring out its poetic nature. The poet has to be a chamelion, should not have any
identity because he has to be continually in and out and also filling some other body.
In his letters Keats distinguishes between "sensation with and without knowledge" and opts for the active
acquisition of "extensive knowledge". He illustrates his point with the parable of life as a "Mansion of
Many Apartments". The first one is "an infant or thoughtless Chamber", with "the awakening of thinking
principle" we enter the" Chamber of Maiden-Thought" where exist "Misery, Heartbreak, Pain, sickness
and oppression", the Chamber darkens so that then we "fail to balance good and evil" and feel "the
burden of mystery". A negative capable person accepts mystery without experiencing it as an
oppressive weight for he is content to be passive and allows his intellect to ripen gradually and does not
feel the need to explore mystery. Keats also argues that the sense of beauty need not obliterate the.
consideration of "Misery and Heartbreak, Pain, sickness and oppression" The poet's approach has its moral
value—`evil is an intrisic part of the universe, and the appreciation of the beauty of instinctive life amidst
the scenes of wrong and misery often helps to reconcile us to the inevitable. Suffering is an
indispensable part of personality development or the soul-making process. Whatever is grasped
intellectually must be submitted to emotional experience and sensation and the heart's affections must
feed the imagination. "Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced". And "the only means of
strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing—to let the mind be a thoroughfare
for all thoughts. Not a select party." To Keats Negative capability is not "a negative condition." Rather it
is "a state neither of ignorance nor paralysis"—it frees `a thinking man from the weary weight of
unintelligible world by raising mystery to the province of imagination and it enables a poet to submerge
his identity into that of other, whenever and wherever he composes or meditates on poetry.' Creative
person cannot have a fixed identity. Keats's repeated suppression of his 'self' in his works reinforces his
native susceptibility to new experience and a capacity for growth.
Romanticist particularly the great romanticists attempted to present life and its problems from their
own points of view. They were concerned with the world created imaginatively or intuitively. But poets like
Keats also realized that the world of beauty created by the fancy or this "vision of the archetypal
reality" cannot sustain long. For a short time only a poet can fly on the viewless wings of Poesy and
experience the bliss of eternity or immortality. The Imagination's fairy cannot cheat us forever, and we
have to accept the reality of both the worlds—immortal world of our imagination and our real world of
mutability. Byron's Lucifer persuades Cain to "revolt" by convincing him of "the inadequacy of his state to
his conceptions". Shelley, who is a visionary, dreamer, radical and a believer in a Utopian Universe ruled
by the concepts of liberty, fraternity and equality, in some of his poems falls from "ecstasy into
disillusionment". Keats and the younger poets who inherited the melancholy strain from the senior
romantic poets understand the futility of running away from the sordid realities of life and asserted that a
poet could enjoy Beauty and Truth by turning to "innermost stronghold of his own spirit" by
withdrawing from the external experience into "the inner experience." Like Keats a romanticist can write
4
about "the holiness of hearts' affections". According to J. Middleton Murry a "romantic is in rebellion
against external law" and "asserts the rights of his individuality contra mundum".
In some romanticists the expansion of romantic imagination has taken disquietening forms. For
example Byomic concepts of the "daemonic male and the femme fatale'. But such instances are' rare. The
Romantic poetry written between 1785 and 1832 touches high literary levels and we discern very
few instances of the grotesque and bizarre.
At times we observe in the romantic mood the influence of the oriental mind, which had flowed
into the western thought and culture through the channels of Neo-Platonic speculation. The classicists
found Divinity in Order. Restraint and Proportion. But to the East Divine was vast and vague. "The
impact of the Eastern thoughts resulted in the identification of the intellect with desire, the domination of
emotion over reason-, the assertion of the Ego above the claim of the society." By the end of the eighteen
century 'the instinctive side of the personality' became stronger and more 'individualistic'. The control of
tradition, morality and religion began to loosen and Rousseau's Social Contract theory, the principles of the
French Revolution and the realization of man's individuality and liberty began to change the social, political,
and religious values. Rousseau said that man was born free but chained by man-made institutional laws, he was
by nature innocent but was corrupted by 'laws' and customs. Man must attempt to break the fetters of captivity
and return to nature. His beliefs took the imaginative mind by storm. The Calvinists advocated belief in
predestination and freedom of man, Hume's "psychological thories" encouraged "the unaccountable and the
uncivilised." Blake and Wordsworth also expressed "anti-intellectualism" in their poems. Blake's Urizen breaks
up "the primal unity into rational categories" and Wordsworth condemned "that false secondary power by
which we multiply distinctions." (The Prelude). Keats's declaration "Philosophy will clip an angel's wing"
echoes Blakes "emblems where perblind Reason is clipping the wings of Love."
The anti-intellectualism had its roots in the apprehension that 'learning leads to vice' and "ignorance is a
bliss, a virtue". People began to idolise the "noble savage" the peasant and the child, long before Blake,
Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote poems.
Glimpses of these beliefs can be found in Wordsworth's poems where he deals with the intuitive
wisdom of childhood and the life of the rustics. The romanticists wrote about the simple, the rustic, the
democratic and the remote. We also find in their works a "a return to nature" and to "the cult of
mountains and islands and the virgin lands of the World". The love for primitivism led to "the taste for the
reliques of the ancient poetry" and also to the romantic conception of "genius and poetry as a gift of nature,
not an acquired art." Poets wrote about the Middle Ages with a fresh sympathy. To Keats the Middle Ages
offered a spiritual home "real, vague and mysterious". The poets did not 'reconstruct' the past, they created
a past which ought to have been. Napoleonic wars gave a new dimension to this love for the past—this love led
to nationalism and patriotism. But nationalism and patriotism could not become an integral part of the romanticism.
The older generation may have written about patriotism but the younger romanticists were cosmopolitan in their
outlook.
The romanticist wrote about 'the remote in the past' and the remote in time'. The imagination flies
from the castles in the wind-grieved Alpinnes to the haunted castles whose "magic casements opened upon
the perilous seas" of fairyland. Coloridge transports the reader to the enchanted castle of Kubla Khan, the
vampire haunted castle of Christabel, the demon-infested seas of the Ancient Mariner. With Keats the reader
attends the wedding-banquet of Lycius and Lamia in the palace at Corinth. Some romanticists, who could not
reach the height of Coleridge and Keats produced 'more spectre ballads and Gothicism'.
The typical romanticist is usually a dreamer, or a visionary. The dream is often symbolic, the language
is suggestive and loaded with overtones of meaning and associations.
The romantic poetry differs from the earlier classical poetry because it stresses the role of 'Imagination',
`Intuition' or "Intellectual Beauty", deals with all the subjects one could imagine—commonmen, nature, childhood,
mysticism, spiritualism, revolution, utopia, the remote in time and the remote in place. These poets experiment with
various poetic and rhetoric devices. They create a world of beauty and eternity. Their language is often
symbolic and suggestive.
5
2 . (a) On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
October 1816
Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western isles have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold.
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken,
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared out at the Pacific, and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
(b) The Study of the Poem
2.01 Introduction
Keats's first real poem "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" celebrates the discovery of a
`demense' previously known to him only by report. The poem appeared in his 1817 volume of poems.
Keats could read Latin but had little knowledge of Greek. He was not impressed by Pope's
translations of Homer's Illiad and Odyssey. But when his friend Cowden Clarke introduced him to
the works of Homer translated by Chapman (who lived in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period),
Keats was so much stimulated and excited that the next morning he presented his Sonnet on
"Chapman" to Clarke. This Sonnet differed by only one line and one word from the text as later
printed. "It was a work of real inspiration, the finest thing that Keats had yet written."
The central image of the 'traveller' has been taken from Spanish conquisitors. Keats (the
speaker) compares his reading in literature with a traveller's search of the realms of gold —of el
dorado. He admits that he has read many great works written by great European writers, but had
not much knowledge of Homer's excellence. As a traveller he had visited many kingdoms but had
never seen Homer's golden realm, though he had heard about it. But when he came across
Chapmart's translations, his eyes opened to the new beautiful and splendid literary world. He felt as
delighted and awe-struck as an astronomer who suddenly sights a new planet sliding towards his
telescopic view or as Cortez (actually Balboa) who stood on Darien gazing at the newly-found vast
Pacific.
Brian Stone in The Poetry of Keats (Penguine Critical Studies Series) writes:
...It (the Sonnet on Chapman's Homer) records the aesthatic thrill that Keats, as
experienced lover of poetry—`Much have I travelled in the realm of gold'—felt on reading the
Jacobean poet's translation of Homer's Illiad and Odyssey... Keats's powerfully graphic
evocation of the first Europeans as they set eyes on the Pacific Ocean to whom he
compares himself as he first set eyes on Chapman's Homer is terribly significant. It
6
demonstrates his profound preference for Renaissance language and poetic thought o ver those
of the eighteenth century. It demonstrates his initial mastery of the sonnet form, at a level far
above that of many occasional sonnets which until April 1817, he was in the habit of
dashing off. Lastly it testifies to the growing absorption into creative imagination of the
world of Greek mythology.
2.02 The Poem
The sonnet is written in the Petrarchan sonnet form. Its rhyme schme in ABBA ABBA
CDCDCD. The Octave deals with the theme of exploration and the main image or metaphor is that of
the poet as a literary traveller or adventurer. In the sestet the adventurer expresses his extreme
ecstasy at the discovery of the new land—the translation of Homer's works by Chapman. He presents
his wonder and joy with-the help of similies.
According to Glennis Byron the reading of Chapman's Homer is the "pivotal moment" of the
sonnet—it is "the volta which prompts the turn from one theme (the theme of exploration) to the other
(the theme of discovery)".
The poem has an excellent structure—has both unity and progression. In the octave the speaker (the
traveller) tells us about his past adventures. He sets out in search of an el dorado. The literary works are
likened to the realms of gold'. The lines depict Keats's profound love and reverence of great literary
writers and their works.
The sonnet is a masterpiece in which the poet has exquisite'y exploited the 'metaphoric exploration'
("journeys in the realm of gold", "states and kingdoms", "islands") to describe the speaker's experience of
reading works of various writers. From the metaphoric exploration the poem moves on to the actual
discovery. In order to highlight the significance of this discovery the poet refers to actual discoveries, the
sudden discovery of a new planet by an astronomer and 'more concretely and specifically to the historic
discovery of the Pacific by a conquisitor and his followers'. There is a masterful blending of "abstract and
concrete, metaphoric and historic, literary exploration and topographical exploration, cultural discovery
and territorial discovery'. (A Preface to Keats, Cadric Watts)
The speaker has travelled in the 'realm of gold', and has seen and learnt about many great and good
states and kingdoms. (He has avidly read and understood the works of great writers belonging to various
countries.) He has also visited many western bards (works of poets belonging to the western countries),
who were inspired by the sun god, the god of the Muses—Apollo—and who in rank and greatness are
akin to Apollo. (Reference is to the renowned poets of the classical and mythological times particularly,
Latin writers). These writers still enlighten and stimulate other writers—they shine like the brilliant sun
in the horizon of great literatures. Keats admits his limitations when he writes that although he had heard
great things about Homer he•did not have a chance to understand and know him well. (Remember
Keats had already read Pope's translations of Homer's works, but did not appreciate those translations
for their style and diction).
He was aware of the tremendous sway of Homer's work over many lands—he describes Homer as
"deep brow'd Homer" implying most versatile and experienced writer who was revered and emulated by
poets and play-wrights. Keats could have a taste of his severe and sublime works only when he came across
Chapman's translations. Keats excitedly says that he could "breathe its pure serene" air only when he
"heard Chapman speak out loud and bold".
It is a paradox that Keats, who campares the reading of poetry to the travelling around the world in
search of gold uses 'a historic example of travel and discovery' to convey the shock of literary discovery',
in the later part of the sonnet. The sonnet begins with 'a glowing shimmery vagueness' and ends on 'a
realistic and precise note'—the exciting attainment of the conquisitor and his followers. He uses
similes to express the solitary speaker's excitement and ecstasy. First, we see the speaker is as amazed
and thrilled (to discover Homer in the works of Chapman) as an astronomer is at the sight of a new
planet. The planet "swims into his ken"—'swinzs suggests with precision the way in which a planet may
seem to move undulating, into the vision of a man adjusting a telescope'. (Cadric Watts).
7
The other comparison is with the 'stout Cortez'. [Note, here Keats has confused Cortez (1485-1547) who
conquered Maxico, with- Balboa (1475-1519) who was the first explorer to see the Pacific]. We need not
bother about the confusion. What is the significance of 'the historical specificity of the image' in the
poem? The reference to 'a historical specificity' adds more authencity to the description. How did Cortez
(Balboa) and his men react when they spotted the Pacific? They were `agogged'. Cortez's "eagle eyes"
stared at the ocean, while "His men looked at each other with a wild surmise." They were not merely
amazed or wonderstruck, they could not believe their eyes, they were in a state of bewilderment and
excitement. The novelty of the experience silenced them.
Chapman's speaking out loud and bold" (octave) has been beautifully and skilfully contrasted with
the silence of the unlookers in the sestet.
What else do we observe in the poem? No doubt the emotional tone in the sonnet is one of
excitement, but it becomes more of extreme wonder as the poem reaches its climax. The overwhelming
vastness of the new world has been used both figuratively and literally. The speaker has heard of "a
vast expanse", and when he reaches it or finds it—it is vast like the sky or the Pacific Ocean. The similes
related to discoveries are significant. The astronomer's discovery of the planet is a passive one—(a
passive act) since the new planet 'swims into his ken'. Cortez (the explorer) is a contrast to the
astronomer. He is an explorer, an active adventurer, a man of action. He stares at the Pacific "with
eagle eyes" trying to scan it, find out what it is, what it has to tell him. He is silent in his wonder.
Although he is surrounded by his men, he does not communicate with them and they themselves are
astronished and silenced by the intensity of his expression.
"The word silent is the culmination of the poem, expressing that sense of wonder, which has been
built up throughout, standing, like Cortez, alone and allowing a pause of almost indefinite length before
the remainder of line dies away to leave the explorer in his solitude.' (Cyril Kemp—Keats's Poetry
and Prose).
The sonnet is rich in the use of assonances and alliterations. We observe that from line ten
onwards 'n' of when is echoed in new, ken, when, men, silent, Darien, P of planet resounds in
Pacific, peak, I of planet in like, look'd silent, s of swims in stout, star'd, Pacific, surmise and
silent and, i of like in wild and silent.
When we read line ten onwards, we observe that this deliberate patterning of words has slowed the
reading, made it more 'deliberate and self-aware' and provided 'sensuous pleasure to the oral and aural
powers'. It has given the sonnet an originality—it 'inter-relates and illuminates widely-ranging
experiences.'
2.03 Some Comments
"On Looking into Chapman's Homer" has been widely acclaimed by the critics to be a masterpiece.
The precision of description, the use of metaphor and similes and the skilful development of the themes of
search and discovery, the excitement of the speaker at the discovery of Chapman's Homer, the deliberate
use of assonances and alliterations lend the sonnet its beauty.
Earlier critics thought that Keats was an escapist and was not concerned with the historical and
political changes occurring in England as well as Europe. But modern critics are opposed to this view.
They have given new meaning and new interpretation to the sonnet. It is argued that Keats's source for
information about the discovery of the new world is Robertson's History of America. Robertson on the
one hand praised the Spanish explorers for 'the strange and marvelous discoveries they made' on the
other he ridiculed them by showing that all their exploits "were prompted by greed, personal ambition and
a particularly brutal form of imperialism involving the large scale abuse and slaughter of the native
populations." (Selected Poems—John Keats by .Glennis Byron.)
The historicist critics argue that Keats's sonnet "on Chapman's Homer" deals with 'exploration and
colonization as the work of the poet.' The poem moves from the discovery of Chapman's Homer to the
Spanish discovery of the New World. Both the historical and imaginative processes are associated with
'territory and conquest'. How does Keats connect the two processes? His discovery of Chapman's
8
Homer is likened to the explorer's discovery of the. Pacific. By implication the poet can 'discover' the
wonders of the world imaginatively, "The realm of gold" refers to the traditions of poetry. The realm of
gold has an implicit meaning also. Perhaps Keats is obliquely referring to the greed and avariciousness of
the travellers as well as to the 'cultural impoverishment of the 19th century capitalist society.'
A few critics believe that Keats is also indirectly referring to 'the personal gains'. This assumption
is based on Robertson's description of Balboa. (Keats has confused Balboa with Cortez). Robertson
believed that Balboa's search of places was motivated by "a desire to rival and even exceed the discoveries of
his predecessor Columbus"..Keats belonged to the middle class and dreamt of becoming a poet of
consequence, a great poet to be admired and emulated. He was conscious of the hostile attitude of the
nineteenth century people towards the middle class writers. As "the explorers pillaged the New World
so Keats pillages by means of Chapman's translation, Homer and Greek culture." When Keats wrote
the sonnet he was not sure about his social background, education and himself as a poet. "Perhaps the
sonnet reveals Keats's attempt to claim for himself a place within the literary tradition, to authorise
and legitimate a sense of himself as a poet."
To Vincet Newey Keats's sonnet reveals that he was an Outsider. He "circumnavigates
the place" occupied by great poets—as he says "Round many western Islands have I been". He
is not yet a great poet, his career has just begun and he would like to stake the claim to the
territory of the great. 'He desires to be part of that culture to which he does not belong by birth or
upbringing.'
Keats's aspiration to occupy a place among the established poetic cult ure obliquely echoes the
ambition of 'the aspiring classes in the capitalist, imperialist society of the time.'
The arguments put forth by the historicists can not be accepted. To consider the poem as a
vehicle of the poet's personal or selfish motives is to destroy its beauty as a poem.
9
3. (a) La Belle Dame sans Merci
"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing!
"O what can all thee, knight-at-arms
5
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full
And the harvest's done.
"I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
10
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too."
"I met a Lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
15
And her eyes were wild.
"I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
20
"I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery's song.
"She found me roots of relish sweet,
25
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
`I love three true!'
"She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore;
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four.
"And there she lulled me asleep
10
30
And there I dream'd—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
35
On the cold hill's side.
"I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cried-1,a belle dame sans merci
Thee hath in thrall!'
40
"I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
"And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
On the cold hill's side.
"And this is why I sojourn here,
45
Alone and palely loitering;
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing."
(b) Study of the Poem
3.01 Introduction:
"La Belle Dame Sans Merci" was written in April 1819. Keats took the title La Belle Dame Sans
Merci from 'an early fifteenth century French poem by Alain Chartier. The phrase belongs to the
terminology of the courtly love, and describes a beautiful lady without mercy, that is the sort of
gracious kindness which prompts a woman to accept a lover's plea'. (Brian Stone: The Poetry of
Keats). The title must have fascinated Keats, for in the "Eve of St. Agnes" that he had just
completed, it is the title of the song played on the lute, by the lover to his sleeping lady. (Stanza
33)
"La Belle" is a ballad. There are two kinds of ballads—traditional and literary. The traditional
or true ballad has its roots in the Middle Ages and the literary ballad was the revival of the ballad form
in the nineteenth century. Ballads were written in the stanzas of four lines i.e. quartrains (metrical
patterns of 4, 3, 4, 3) with 2nd and 4th lines usually rhyming.
The ballad was a dramatic verse tale which moved rapidly. The ballad used little description, it
narrated very few incidents and the details of the story were presented in a straight forward
manner. The themes of the old ballads were usually love and war, an exciting adventure, a loss, a
family disaster, usually they contained supernatural elements.
Ballads gradually died out. But in the later half of the eighteenth century there was a revival of
interest in the ballad form. Consequently collections of old ballads were brought out. Some poets in
the late eighteen and early nineteenth century were inspired by the form and wrote ballads.
Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mainer" and Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" are
masterful literary ballads. Keats in his ballad has changed the quatrain, making the fourth
line shorter—this slows the movement of the poem.
Many legends concerning 'women' were current during the dim and shadowy Middle Ages. The
beauty of the Fatal woman or Femme Fatale was a curse to mankind. These women were
often presented as enchantresses, witches, sirens, mermaids, or serpent women (example,
11
Coleridge's "Christable" and Keats's Lamia) who lured men by their strange (`wild') beauty to
their ruin or death.
The lady of Keats's ballad "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is a fatal woman of the medieval
romance. The title itself suggests that she is a beautiful lady without any pity who ruins the life of
a knight.
3.02 The Poem:
In this ballad ("La Belle") with an inimitable magic Keats has depicted a cheated soul. "Flight
into visionary experience and back again is expressed by means of well-known motif (which he
later used in Lamia) of a mortal's ruinous love for a supernatural lady."
What is its story? "La Belle" is a dramatic verse narrative in which the speaker comes across a
woebegone knight-at-arms in a desolate winter setting. He asks the knight why he is loitering
aimlessly, all alone, in this cold landscape, why he looks so sick, pale and lifeless. The knight
narrates his eerie experience. He tells that he met a beauty ("a fairy's child") in the "mead" and fell
passionately in love with her. He rode with her to her "elfin grot" where the beautiful lady lulled him
to sleep. There he had many horrifying dreams. In his latest dream be saw "death-pale kings and
princes", and "pale warriors" who warned him that "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" had enthralled
him. When he woke up he found himself on this dreary landscape. He is now wasting away "On the
cold hill side."
( a ) La Belle as a poem of love
Keats's Isabella, the Eve of St Agnes, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" and sonnet on Paolo and
Francesca tell love stories and all are "modern" recreations of a medieval source or setting and none
of them offers a self-evident "meaning". All these poems deal with couples possessed by love. They
have "strong erotic elements", and in Isabella and "La Belle" 'sexual love leads to death'. There are
two types of women—either they respond passively to the events beyond their control, or they are
dominant and demonic like La Belle. All these women (of the four poems) "are expressions of
prevalent attitudes to women's sexuality" (John Barnard—John Keats). La Belle's erotic gestures
destroys men; Isabelle's violent love leads to her death, Paolo and Francesca are condemned to
hell for their carnal love while passive Medeline is united with her lover.
The Eve of St Agnes is 'a celebratory dream of love'—it is not merely a poem describing the truth
about human love but is also "a metaphor for the profigurative power of the imagination." "La
Belle" presents a contrasting (contrasted from what is presented in The Eve of St Agnes) picture of
love. The knight's experiences take away his liberty, he finds himself in "thrall", which separates him
from "the natural and human cycles of generation". To the knight she is a seductress and destroyer,
'Taut, eerie, and impersonal the ballad makes no judgements. Although "La Belle Dame Sam Merci"
belongs to the Romantic cult of the ballad, evident in Burger, Scott, Wordsworth and Coleridge,
Keats's intuitive assimilation of his sources, result in a very different kind of poem," (John Barnard).
Keats's La Belle is more akin to the fairy goddess (in Celtic tradition) than to the femmes fatales of the
Middle Ages. In the Celtic tradition the goddess is "paradoxically both an evil figure and a protector
and nurturer of heroes... La Dame der Lac, the benevolent fay, is in reality Morgan La F ee, the
malevolent enchantress, in another guise, the two are part of a larger duality. Starting within a
tradition of literary imitation, Keats's truth to the inner forum of his story allows 'La Belle Dame Sans
Merci" to recreate its archetype." (John Barnard).
"Keats makes no judgement on the lady or the knight. No where do we get a clear hint that the
lady is wilfully cruel to the knight or the knight is unable to sustain the vision and so he finds himself on
the cold hill side." Some critics consider the lady to be a Circe figure who deliberately leads men to
destruction through love.
The fairy world described in the poem is both attractive and ominous. It is a question poem in
the sense that we cannot comprehend the meaning of the knight's experience nor can we accept his
version as authentic. The knight's questioner as well as the reader "is located firmly in the natural
12
world of harvest and fulfillment and is as firmly excluded from the knight's experience as he is
from ours." (J. Barnard).
The knight's fairy lover ("the fairy's child," "wild" and "full beautiful") looks at him "as she did
love", and "in a language strange she said—"I love thee true" ...Is the knight trying to convince
himself that she genuinely loved him? Or is he in a state of confusion? But the following stanzas
reveal that the outcome of her love is destructive. Once he enters her `grot', she 'wept' and "sighed"
full sore, She lulled him to sleep and there he dreamed—had nightmarish dreams of death and
destruction caused by the beautiful woman.
Keats has woven a glimmering web of mystery around the love story. We can't be certain
whether the lady loved the knight genuinely or whether the dream was true. Can't tell whet her he
has himself chosen to wander aimlessly in the desolated deserted landscape or he has been punished
for loving the lady without mercy. (`whether - his dream experience ties him there against his wish").
"Unlike his questioner, who lives in real time, with a past and future. the knight inhabits a wasteland
more psychic than physical, and exists in a timeless present progressing towards death..." (J.
Barnard).
( b ) As a poem of "dream within dreams"
In "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" Keats has skilfully conjured "diverse elements into a unified
impression of spell-bounding mystery". It is a poem of "dream within dreams". It has three
"concentric dream circles". The outer frame (Dream I) shows 'a weird encounter' between the poem's
first speaker and the woe-begone, haggard knight-at-arms, on whose cheek the rose is fading and
whose forehead is lily-like pale and white, with drops of perspiration. The knight's ride through the
meadow with the fairy's child and the "Kisses four" in the "elfin grot" fo7n the inner frame (Dream 2)
In the "grot" the knight is fed on supernatural delicacies ("manna dew" and "wil d, honey") and is
lulled to sleep. In his sleep he has frightening dreams and in his "latest" dream he saw pale kings, 'pale
princes and pale warriors with parched lips and awesome expressions, who gaped at him to warn him
about his enthrallment. This appalling dream-forms the third frame. (Dream 3).
"The aura of a transcendental experience which pervades the meeting with the fairy lady (dream 2)
is undermined by the knight's dream of the death pale kings and warriors (dream 3) with its suggestion
of mortality and betrayal. This dream [within the Knight's dream of the starved lips and horrid
warning" (dream 3)] comes true when the Knight awakens on the cold hill side pale and enthralled
as the dream prophesied" (John Keats):
Keats has exploited dream-sequence in many poems. The dream-sequence of "La Belle"
differs from that of Endymion. The realization of the dream of pallor and starvation ("La Belle")
"moves in the opposite direction from Endymion's and Madeline's dreams". In (Endymion) the
dreams of Endymion and Madeline, we observe that the fulfilment signifies "a shift from the actual to
some ecstatic transcendental dream". What do we observe in "La Belle"? Within the dream of the La
Belle the movement from the first speaker's questioning to the knight's reply, the transition is from
the bleak dreary landscape to the beautiful supernatural world—(the world of fantasy) and within
this fairy world the real, horrifying deadly dream occurs. And from this 'death' world we move
back to the world of the withering sedge. (The movement is from Dream l to Dream 2, to Dream
3 and then back to Dream One). The transition is from the harsh real world to the imaginary world
of beauty and love to the world of mutability to the harsh real real world. If there is something
which thrills and pleases the Knight and makes the poem a fantasy is the second dream, the entry
into or journey through and sojourn in the "elfin world itself is a pure dream" (Dream 2) in the
ballad.
The second dream, described in six stanzas, is the central to the poem. At the beginning the Knight
meets with a fairy's child in a meadow. The Knight was so much enamoured of her beauty and
"wild, wild eyes" that he made "a garland for her head, and bracelets too", and garlands, also for
her "fragrant zone". He forced her to sit on "his pacing steed" (indicative of the intensity of his
passion) and did not see anything else "all day long". It is apparent that at the outset the Knight is the
13
dominant figure, who plays upon the feelings of the lady. Then there occurs a subtle transfer of the
initiative (Stanzas 4 to 7) from the Knight's / to the lady's she (Stanzas 7 to 9.) It is notworthy
that the lady's 'erotic feelings' are expressed in ambiguous terms —"as she did love me," Is the
Knight not certain about her feelings or is he attempting to convince himself that she loved him? Do
the stanzas seven to nine depict the lady as a seductress?
"For side longwould she bend and sing.
A faery's song"
……………………………………………
"She found me roots of relish sweet
And honey wild and manna dew."
"....in a strange language she said, "I love thee true". She appears as a caressing mother, when she
lulls him "asleep".
The lady's side-long bending, unusual food, strange language and sore sighing help to create a
supernatural atmosphere, a dream-like vague atmosphere.
When the Knight says that in his latest dream he saw death pale kings, warriors and princes
and when he woke up, he found himself on the cold hillside, instead of the `groe, we doubt whether
he really met a fairy child, the beautiful lady, and entered her `groe; or whether it was a 'vision' or 'a
dream'—he had never left "the cold hill side"; when he entered this imaginary world, the birds were
still singing and the harvest was not yet done. When he is 'back' to the actual world after the horrifying
dream, the weather has changed and winter has arrived. Winter is used both figuratively and literally.
In the traditional ballad style Keats has used question and answer form in "La Belle". In a traditional
ballad the mystery is resolved in the last stanza. Since "La Belle" is a complex poem, the mystery
remains unresolved till the end. The Knight's explanation "And that is why..." does not satisfy the
reader and the speaker's curiosity. It raises more questions than it answers. Both the reader and the
speaker know that the Knight is unable to go 'home' in this clement weather because he is in 'thrall'. But it
is not evident whether the Knight knows exactly how, why and what things have happened to him? The
dream in the grot holds the key to the riddle and enables the questioner to comprehend what the
Knight has experienced.
"In "St. Agnes" Keats skillfully manipulates his reader and carries him from the world of fantasy and
romance to the world of reality". But there is no manipulation in the ballad. The poem begins with the
description of the stark cold desolate winter setting where the speaker meets with the woe-begone
Knight. Then the questioner is guided by the Knight to the fairy world, where the latter is supposed to have
a blissful exotic (erotic) experience. From the fairy world of 'passion', pleasure and 'entertainment' the
speaker enters the nightmarish 'dream' of the Knight, moves into the world of sickness, and death—it is a
transition from the wonderful fantastic world of 'sexual' happiness to 'the Hades'. The speaker is made to
participate both in the blissful and the dreadful experiences of the Knight. The Knight had an encounter
with 'death' in his dream, and when he wakes out of the frightening dream he finds himself on a lonely
landscape.
In the last six lines of the poem the speaker once again returns to the realistic level and finds
himself within the dream world of the outer frame.
The concentric dream circles' make the poem enchanting and mysterious. Here we have the
presentation of something "felt on the pulses, of a beauty seized as a truth by the imagination, and
expressed in a language of sensation, inaccessible to the consecutive reasoning."
(c) The use of Negative Capability
The concept of negative capability has been given a new dimension in "La Belle". The whole story
of the Knight, his experiences and dream are presented in a masterful way. The poem can be interpreted
in various ways. First so much of ambiguity surrounds the Knight and the lady that it is not possible to
14
say what they symbolize. Critics intepret the lady, the Knight, the journey of the Knight, and his dream
in many ways. In fact "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is the most evasive and mysterious of Keats's poem.
It raises a variety of questions. Is the fairy's child a Cynthia who failed to "make Men's being mortal
immortal" (Endymioh I Lines 843-44), a vampire, a Circe "a fairy mistress from hell" or "neutral to good
or evil"? Does she stand for poetic imagination? Is the Knight's lapse from the vision is due to her
refusal to keep the deception (the world of beauty and fantasy) or due to his inability to sustain "the
transcendental experience"? Or Is his failure, the result of 'his awareness of his mortality'
(Wasserman) or "his fear of facing death". (Richard Benvento).
The Lady could be any of the four intensities mentioned in Keats's "Why Did I Laugh Tonight". She
could be verse, fame, 'beauty and death. She may even represent 'the fatality of beauty' or "a fair
maid and love her name" ("Ode on Idleness").
Keats in the three poems—Isabella, "St Agnes" and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" has depicted
the perils of love.
According to Murry behind the poem "lies the anguish of impossible love" of Fanny Brawne. To
some critics the Knight's journey symbolises the tragedy of Faustian rejection of human limitation. The
poem reminds us of Edymion's lines 646-48 IV.
There never liv'd a mortal man, who bent
His appetite beyond the natural sphere,
But starv'd and died.
The Knight is a prey of his supernatural adventure, consequently he is unable to find his bearings in
the natural world of birds, harvest and decay. Perhaps when he was journeying through the fairy land,
the birds sang, the squirrel filled their granary, but, now when he is back to the natural world, the harvest
is done, no birds sing, and the grannary is full. He is left alone on a 'waste land' unprovided for.
Observe the pattern of the last two stanzas. The 'truncated stanzaic close" echoes "the finality of
tik loss." "In his vain attempt to be a part of the supernatural world, the Knight has alienated himself from
the natural world and thus he loses both the worlds, he is a double loser. We can interpret his
predicament in a different way. The fairy land is merely a figment of his imagination or fancy, or is
a day dream. As Keats says in his 'Ode to a Nightingale' fancy is a deceiving elf, here imagination
can not cheat him forever. The visionary world of passionate love and beauty disappears. The
impact of the fanciful experience and the nightmarish dream is extremely powerful, so he is
unable to reconcile to the reality. He has been cheated of both the wonders of the elfin world and
of nature. His is now 'a kind of life-in-death experience.' In Endymion and St Agnes the
`romantic journey is a worthwhile risk, it proves disastrous in "La Belle"'.
3.03 A critical appreciation of the poem
According to Brian Stone (The Poetry of Keats) "with its haunting medieval resonances, the
poem ( -La Belle") is the last of those for which Keats drew on the literature and folk love of the
Middle Ages. Like Blake's "The Sick Rose" the poem raises by powerful images the ideas of love,
corruption and death...The verification and the process of narration by dialogue show Keats to be
deeply imbued with the spirit and techniques of the medieval ballad".
The story moves in a circular manner. The speaker meets a Knight in a winter landscape from
which the birds have departed, the sedge has withered and where no birds sing. The squirrel's
grannary is full and the harvest is done. All these details point to the season—it is the end of
autumn and winter has arrived. Winter is a season of 'lifelessness' or inactivity.' The Knight's
physical appearance synchronises with the winters desolation.' The speaker is eager to know why the
woe-begone pale looking Knight-at-arms is loitering aimlessly in this bleak landscape. From this
desolate setting the speaker is transported to a 'dream' world of sexual bliss —to the supernatural
world. The Knight describes his blissful experience in detail. The lady whom he meets in the mead
is a fairy's child with wild, wild eves. He is enamoured of her, offers her gifts, rides with her on
15
his 'pacing steed' she sings fairy songs in strange language, and seems to convince him about her
genuine love. The lady is presented as eerie being. He rides to her elfin grot, is fed on heavenly
delicacies. On 'such choice natural products' as "honey wild and manna dew". 'It is apparent then
the plenty is a part of the enchantment', it 'lures him to acts of love and to the ensuing sleep in her
arms'. 'With a sudden chill of nightmare' he sees pale kings, princes and pale warriors—"death pale
were they all". With starved lips and parched tongues thpy gazed at him as if they warned him
that he was "in thrall" of La Belle Dame Sans Merci.
The horrifying description of the kings, princes and warriors is significant in the poem. The
Knight after the erotic bliss finds himself in the realm of death. "The starved lips" has a
Shakespearean connotation implying starved to death. Incidentally the speaker had already observed
the signs of sickness and decay in the Knight's appearance. Perhaps he can now, after listening to the
Knight's tale, easily surmise that the Knight himself is responsible for his own plight because he
'was active and willing in his own seduction'.
The five fold repetition of pale links the ballad with "As Hermes Once" in considering the
act of love in connection with death. The Knight's nightmare can be interpreted in an other way. 'It
is as if the Knight was taken beyond life, saw in the hereafter others, who like himself had been
seduced by the enchantress and was returned to this world weakened and corrupted, past cure, by
his experience.' (Brian Stone).
The poet has used assonances and alliterations. The poem's movement is slow and deliberate since
Keats intends the reader to 'experience' and share the experiences of the Knight and the speaker.
The bleak wintry setting suits the temperament and appearance of the Knight, whose existence is
meaningless, he is completely cut off from natural and supernatural world, he is 'unprovided' for and is
under the spell of the beautiful lady without mercy. The Knight who is supposed to be an adventurer, a
protector of law and of people has lost all his powers. He is still the Knight-at-arms, but with a
difference, he is aimlessly wandering, he is in 'thrall', a captive.
Some of the images (in the poem) including those of rose and lily are taken from Burton's
Anatomy of Malancholy (Refer to the Section on Love—Melancholy). The poem 'haunts the mind
of the reader with the music of its particular tragic themes.' "The Knight-at-arms of "La Belle Dame
Sans Merci" inhabits his own memorable limbo: possessing neither the joys of the girl nor the
finality of death, existing neither in the dream nor in the active life, he is "alone and palely loitering" a
haggard figure in a desolate landscape.- (A Preface to Keats: Cedric Watts)
The Feminist critics have exploited the poem's ambiguity of the verbal presentation to assess the
role of the lady and the Knight. No doubt the poem depicts that the Knight has been enchanted and
enslaved by a beautiful lady without mercy. He is under her spell and so he is loitering aimlessly in the
desolate natural landscape. "On a cold hill side". There is no vegetation and even the rose on his cheeK
is fast fading. The speaker wonders why he looks so sick, so pale, so woe-begone and so haggard and
why he is so lonely. The Knight replies to the querries. In his effort to explain his state to the speaker
the Knight presents the woman or lady as a very `mysterious', person—first she is not an ordinary
being—she is a fairy's child, a supernatural being with wild, wild eyes'; wild wild imply madness,
passion, bewitching power and unnaturalness. Then she speaks a strange 1_ language and in her fairy
grot feeds him with manna dew and honey wild and lulls him to sleep. The Knight thus presents his
lover as a supernatural being, an enchanting person. Was the lady an extraordinary being or is it the
Knight who thinks she was so?The question remains unanswered. We are looking at the lady from the
point of view of the Knight.
Also observe lulls him asleep. It may have double meaning. Like a mother she soothes him and
makes him sleep by singing lullabys. Lull may have a sinister connotation also. She is basically a
treacherous person. She lulls him to sleep, she tries to 'calm his fears or suspicion by deception. What
could be his fears? The fears could be understood only when we observe carefully the ambiguity of the
verbal presentation in the poem. I love Thee true is not the words of the lady, it is the Knight who
thinks that she wanted to tell him in her strange '.Inguage that she loved him truely. How could he
understand her strange language? Again he says "she look'd at me as she did love. And made sweet
16
moan." Does the Knight mean that she looked at him while she loved or she looked at him as though
she loved him? Does he doubt her sincerity? Is he confused? Later when she brings him to her grot,
she weeps and sings. Why does she weep? Nothing is clear. May be the Knight himself was not sure of
her intentions or is he hinting at erotic experiences?
The implication of the lulls him to sleep is understood when the Knight describes his horrifying
dream. The warning of the death pale Kings, princes and warriors confirms the suggestiveness of lulls,
the lady is an enchantress, a femme fatale who mesmerises the Knight with her wild wild eyes,
songs, delicious paradisal Pod, sighs, weepings. The magical, mysterious and ominous effect has
been created through the repetition of words, phrases and lines. Even the alliterations and assonances
are repeated to magnify the effect "her hair was long," "her foot was light". she 'made sweet moan', and
had 'wild wild eyes'. By shortening the last line of each stanza the flow of the lines and thought has been
abruptly cut off. And it gives the impression that something is withheld.
The feminists argue that the lady is actually the victim of the Knight. Once the Knight meets her,
he makes all effort to win her. He takes the initiative to befriend and court her. He presents her garland,
bracelets and belts (traditionally associated with love). They are not meant to be ornamental only, but
symbolically they are means of bindingpf enclosing or captivating. By gifting her garlands, bracelets,
crown and belt the Knight attempts to win and, subdue her By setting her on his pacing steed, he has
possessed her. She reciprocrates his feeling by bending sideways and singing perhaps songs of love in
a strange language. Her bending may be interpreted as an attempt to be free. The Knight interprets her
actions or gestures es "indication of love." Her behaviour in the grot baffles us. She_ sighs and weeps,
why? Is she trying to seduce him by winning his sympathy? 'He kisses her eyes. The erotic connotations
are obvious. She feeds him and lulls him to sleep. After the nightmarish dream he finds himself on the
cold hill side.
The lady's identity is not well-established in the poem. It is the Knight who 'defines and interprets
her identity'. The lady appears to be affectionate, innocent (a fairy's child) and loveable person. It is the
Knight who is fascinated by her wild, wild eyes and beauty, gives her gifts, takes her for a ride. Later
she reciprocates his , feelings by giving him food and making him rest. How could he interpret her
songs when her language was , strange? In fact the Knight tries to convince himself that she loved
him. So we are looking at the woman from' his point of view.
Thp feminists also argue that the Knight's miserable plight is the result of his passionate feelings.
'The "Patriarchal world is dominant in the poem. It is the Knight who narrates his story, who describes
the lady. We don't know the identity of the speaker, but other character, the Knight, the Kings, the
princes, the warriors who appear in his dream belong to the masculine world of strife and action,
government and politics...All these men of the court were attracted to her "elfin grot” and, all must have
tried to subdue her, captivate her; they must have enjoyed her company. By succumbing to her beauty
they have cut themselves off from the masculine world of duties and responsibilities. By submitting to
their erotic desires they have faltered from their duties. It is not the lady who tries to entrap them, they
are victims of their sexual desires.'
Can we passively accept the feminist arguments? The lady is not a passive person. She is a party to this
pleasurable experience. She reciprocates the love gestures of the Knight. She wins him over by singing,
sighing, weeping, feeding and lulling. All these are symbols of love. In her world all the Kings warriors,
princes "regress in an almost infantile manner." Realising that the urge of erotic love ruins men and
obstructs them from performing their patriarchal duties and responsibilities they appear in the Knight's
dream and put the blame for their degradation upon the lady. They present her as a temptress. And her
Knight who himself is enthralled, approves their version. He tells the speaker "And that is why I
sojourn here?"
From the feminists' point of view the lady may be a victim of the male world, but the poem very
skillfully depicts how the erotic love brings about the ruin of a man. The Knight is cut off from the
bower of love and is unable to return to his masculine world of strife and adventure.
17
"In succumbing to his desire to withdraw from the duties and responsibilities of the former into
the luxurious pleasure of the latter he has undermined the definitions and assigned roles of male and
female. Now neither of them is open to him; he is a limbo." (John Keats Selected Poems—Glennis
Byron)
18
4 -Keats Odes
Keats's adopted ode form in place of narrative form for two reasons. One it gave him an
opportunity to invoke the spirit of the 'object' described and identify his I with the spirit. 'Like
prayer, lyric apostrophe addresses the olher in the hope that the act of speech will lead to
communication between the "I" of the poet and the presence invoked...The Odes ' unforced
quality comes not just from the spontaneity with which they were composed, but Keats's
discovery of a form which is built on tension between what is and what might be. The very nature
of the lyric ode assumes the subject and object are not one. Keats's complex urges to affirmation,
questioning, and doubt are allowed full and unself-conscious play by the Odes' clear distinction
between speaker of object addressed and reader. The admitted subjectivity of the genre is the
basis of the Odes' hard won objectivity." (John Keats by John Barnard).
Keats's famous Odes appeared in Laomia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and Other Poems
published i n 1 820. In t hi s co l l ect i on of poems K eat s seems t o concer n hi msel f wi th
t he at ti t ude of t he Victorian public who were influenced by Bentham's theory of Utilitarianism
towards poetry. The Benthamitesridiculed poetry because it had no utilitarian purpose, "it deals
with non-existent Truth. and Beauty, it creates fictitious world and propagates unprofitable
idealism." In many of these poems Keats shows the conflict between ! he visionary or imaginary
world and the actual mundane life on this earth." Paradoxically he attempts to depict "how
Imagination or Fancy can transport us from the world of sordid reality to the world of Immortiality,
Beatit I and Truth, yet Fancy cannot cheat us `forever'—whatever we see 'imaginatively' is shortlived for the perplexed or retarded mind is forced to come back to the actual existenc e."
In order to write his Odes he made certain adjustments in the stanzaic forms. He experimented
with the sonnet. He invented a stanza which allowed thought -to be developed across several stanzas
without losing 'the interwoven and complete'. (Keats's words) character of the sonnet. According to
Barnard `Keats's Odes strive for an interwoven completeness, returning upon their own questions,
each movement cuttins in a .ncw direction, yet seeking a resolution within the original poetic premise—
"eve(r)y point of thought is the centre of an intellectual world" (Keats, Letters, i, 243). As a body they
question one another , reformulate, and worry at closely related problems, forming a loose continued
debate from the "Ode to Psyche to that on "Indolence," with "To Autumn" as a later and final
return. Broadly speaking the Odes are concerned with exclusion, with transience and loss,
beauty and pain, joy and sorrow, and the challenge which experienced reality presents to
the possibility of transcendence...each Ode is separate, a spider's web growing from a
specific point...each poem feels its way . from its own beginnings and in some sense returns
to that beginning.'
Like Keats's Edymion "Ode to Psyche" deals with pastrol setting, lovers (from classical
mythology) sleep in bowers and the speaker comes across a vision while wandering through a forest.
Here the similarity ends. The Ode is "a self-contained hymn to a goddess." "Psyche...the goddess
was never worshipped or sacrificed to with any of the ancient fervour —and perhaps never thought
of in the old religion—I am more orthodox than to let heathen Goddess be so neglected—"
(Keats's Letters ii 106)
`Ode to Psyche’ is an attempt by the self-conscious 'modern' imagination to create its own
myth. Psyche, the soul, needs the completion of love, and the poem's final goal is a dream of love as
well as poetry. Both poefryand human love are creations of the sympathetic imagination. "Ode to
Psyche” differs from the two Odes—"Ode to A Nightingale" and "Ode On a Grecian Urn"—
because of its pattern of question is followed by affirmation, , it removes all doubts.' Middleton
Murry and Earl Wasserman believe that the intention of Ode to Grecianurn is to uphold art as
the highest form of wisdom." Symbolically urn may be taken to be 'a kind of truth proposed by
art, more particularly by poetry and the imagination, but one whose order of knowing is implicitly
criticised by the speaker as a limited one which denies humanity.' (J. Barnard). The Urn is much
19
more than a piece of art—the Ode is a meditation upon an art object which offers a variety of
challenges to the viewer. In the "Ode" Keats subtly creates an imaginary urn which allows the
viewer 'to transpose a picture or art objects into 'words'. Keats not only brings out the contrast
between life and time captured and fossilised in art (inscribed pictures) and transitory life and time
in the actual world but also depicts that. Art makes life and time static and thus immortal but life
and time go on changing and so lead to impermanency and mutability."
The order of Odes as published in 1820 volume—Nightingale, Grecian urn and Psyche—
indicates a movement from doubt to affirmation. All through the Ode the powerful undercurrent of
dissatisfaction with the 'limitations' of the Urn's world does not permit the speaker to accept the urn's
truth—`Beauty is Truth, and Truth is Beauty' for the urn is a cold pastoral and it 'teases' the
viewer.
Compared with "Ode on a Grecian Urn", the "Ode to A Nightingale" is a more mature and
complete poem. John Barnard writes, "Its tensions between flux and stasis, process and annihilation,
being and non-being, are integral to structure and meaning. Means and end match perfectly. With
consummate ease, the 'Nightingale' plays backwards and forwards between the spontaneous song of
an actual bird and the poet's conscious and deepening reflections. Neither a goddess nor an object,
the nightingale allows for an unforced meditation, an internal dialogue which is simultaneously an
exchange between human and non-human."
Keats is always concerned with felt experience and common experience for he is a poet of
sight. His Odes deal with figures and people, and reveal how it feels to 'be puzzled and pained,
yet joyful and ecstatic'. His 'essential experience is the Oxymoronic realization that the pain is
indivisible from joy'.
In his "Ode to Melancholy" beauty, joy and 'aching pleasure' exist in time. Melancholy's
‘sovran shrine' is hidden in the 'very temple of Delight.' Keats is opposed to suicide and tries to
impress upon the reader that Melancholy is present all around us. We must not shun it, rather we
must experience it to the fullest. Melancholy is presented as a mistress and a goddess. 'The intensity
of joy is dependent upon a sense of its passing'. The moment we realise we are experiencing joy, it
begins to decay. Sorrow and joy, melancholy and pleasure are co-existent.
"Ode on Indolence" is an escapist poem. Keats considered his spring Odes as indulgent selfdeceptions.
The spring Odes were written during a spell of fine weather when Keats lived next door to
Fanny Brawne. In these Odes we find a very profound awareness of sufferings and of the
temporariness of beauty. They describe the experience of joy and sorrow, decay of beauty and pleasure,
life and death, immortality and mortality and meditate on how humanity can cope with life's
contradictions.
Keats refashioned the sonnet form to suit his requirements in the Odes. The ten-lined stanzas are
formed with the combination of a quatrain (abab) and sestet (generally cdecde). The quatrain gives an
anchor to the verse and the sestet provides enough room to the verse to expand. In 'Ode to A
Nightingale' the line eight has been shortened while in `To Autumn' a septet has been used in
place of a sestet.
The Odes are remarkable for 'their fine description power and concentr ated richness of
expression'. Word pictures are integral to the poem, there is nothing redundant. "Compression,
precision, compactness of expressions and images add beauty to the Odes." To bend with apples the
moss'd cottage trees, meaning trees growing in the a cottage garden is ' a highly original use of
language", 'the coming musk rose, full of dewy wine' ("Ode to a Nightingale") contains ideas of
freshness, (dewy, coming) maturity (frill) and heady intoxication (‘musk’, ‘wine’),
The figure of personification gives vitality to inanimate objects or abstractions. Autumn is given a
subtle personification—`conspiring with the sun,' sitting careless on a grannary floor.'
20
`Keats has also used alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds) and assonance (repetition of
vowel sounds) in these Odes. The musicality of the Odes is often dependent upon the sound
sequence and very often they reinforce in sound the sense which the words express. The sound of
insects is clearly present in the nasal on and n and in the s sounds of "murmurous haunt of flies on
the summer eves" as is the effervescence of wine in the explosive bs of "beaded bubbles winking at
the brim" ("Nightingale"). The nobbly bark of the trees, the weight of the fruit and crispness of
apples may all perhaps be felt in ennunciating "moss'd Cottage—trees" (`Autumn').'
Keats's Spring Odes are concerned with 'poetry.as an art: its material, its images, the moods of its
creator and it claims to immortality'. Brian stone writes—"Ode to Psyche" draws on Keats's
imaginative engagement with `the beautiful mythology of Greece', to fancy the elevation of the
mortal lover of gold cupid to godhood herself.
Her temple, in the mind of the poet, will be dressed 'With the wreathed trellis of a working
brain', so that she will preside over, and participate in his acts of creation and love. "Ode to A
Nightingale" presents that familiar bird as a type of permanence in art, viewed in the perspective
of the poet's own creative mood, the rise and decline of which constitute the frame and determine
the. rhythm of the poem: his ecstasy in the half way state between wake and asleep; his recognition
of, and poetic profit form, the close relation between pain and pleasure; and his understanding of the
contrast between the imaginary world of poetic ecstasy and the real world of suffering and death.
"Ode on a-Grecian Urn" pursues the idea of the perfection and permanence of a fine work of art
more selectively..."Ode on Melancholy "...presents the mood of the title...as a rich state of mind in
which intense feelings such as joy and "aching pleasure" may be expressed more powerfully because
of "the wakeful anguish of the soul" in its melancholic state. ...There are three linked figures ("Ode
on Indolence") which Keats treats as personifications of Love, Ambition and Poesy, they change as he
moves round the urn, and seem to be "Shadows", "Ghosts" whom, in a mood of indolence, he wishes
to banish, that is, to cease being inspired by them".
21
5. (a) Ode to a Nightingale
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk.
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
`Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
5
But being too happy in thine happiness,
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.
10
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South!
15
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
20
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
25
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
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.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
22
30
Already with thee! tender is the night;
35
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
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. 40
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Where with the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild:
45
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
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.
50
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
55
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
60
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
65
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
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
23
70
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
75
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
80
(b) A Study of the Poem
5.01 Introduction
The "Ode to A Nightingale" was written in May 1819. "The poem presents Keats's 'unappeased
craving for permanence, his failure to escape the mutable world and die into a higher life.' The
speaker (the poet) is overpowered by the spontaneous melodious song of a nightingale, he hopes to
follow it into the forest dim, leaving behind the spectacle of human death, suffering, fret and fever,
and die so as to perpetuate the ecstatic moment. The poet on the viewless wings of poesy moves
into 'the eternal realm of song' and is able to feel the charm of the embalmed beauty of nature
and experience and visualise the magical effect of the song of this immortal bird not only on himself
but also in remote times on Ruth, Kings, Clowns and the maidens imprisoned in the castles located on
the shores of perilous sees. The poet is transporated to a world of eternal joy and immortality, his return to
actuality is very shattering. The nightingale impresses upon him the consciousness of his own mortality
and sharpens the contrast between sensation and thought. The poem also highlights the contrast between
the raptures of the bird's song and consecutive reasoning of the perplexing and retarding "dull brain." Like
the "Ode to Psyche" this ''Ode on a Nightingale" extols the autonomous power of imagination which can
create 'beauty as a compensation of the life's losses'. The bird's song also reveals how beauty consists of
'the ecstasy' (158) of fulfilment as well as the "plaintive note" of disillusion. If Keats suspects the power
of visionary experience in the "Ode to Psyche", in this Ode he is unable to sustain the ecstasy of that
experience till the end of the poem and he is forced to return to the actual world, from the realm of
fancy. The ending of the poem—Do I wake or sleep—undermines the poet's song-inspired visionary
flight and casts doubt on the whole nightingale episode. Critics call the Ode 'a reverie, inspite of the fact
that Keats had actually heard a nightingale's song from 'their Hamstead home and the bird's song had
inspired him to write this Ode.' (Brown's letter in Keats's Circle II, 65)."
5.02 The poem
Keats listens to the song of the nightingale. He feels extremely happy at its happiness. He
experiences an aching pleasurepleasure felt as paiMon listening to it. He seems to have forgotten his
surroundings. The poet longs for a cup of wine to escape into the happy world of the nightingale. He is
then acutely reminded of the tragedy of humaqifet4the fever and fret of life. Keats then seeks the help of
poetic imagination. With Poesy, he finds himself transported into the world of the nightingale which has
all the beauty of early summer. His happiness is intense and he is completely lost in that happy world.
The pleasure that he feels is so rich and true that he wants to make this luxurious moment a permanent
one. So he yearns for death. 'It is rich to die' in that temporary heaven. It would be a luxurious experience
for him because the nightingale is singing in ecstasy and he would die listening to it. Thus death would
become a boon, a positive, healthy experience for Keats now. Soon he realizes the impossibility of the
fulfilment of his desire. The idea of death reminds him strikingly of the immortality of the bird (its song),
nature's music as contrasted with human mortality (change and decay). The nightingale is immortal in the
sense that its song knows no death. The beauty and joy of the nightingale's song do not change with the
24
passage of time. Its song is the same today as it was heard ages back, by kings and peasants, by Ruth,
the Moabite woman in the days of the old Testament and by princesses in forlorn fairy land in the
middle ages of magic and romance. So the song of the nightingale knows no historical or geographical
limits. The closing of the 7th stanza with the word lorlon' wakes him up from the world of poetry. He
realises that he cannot escape from the realities of the world as easily as he had desired and pretended
to. He bids the bird good-bye and imagines the bird fading away into distant lands. The poet returns to
the realities of life, somewhat dazed. He is uncertain what is real—the little happiness that he was
lulled into or this dull life he was living. (M. Samuel)
5.03 Study Notes
Stanza I
Keats describes here the effect of the song of the nightingale upon his mind. As the poet listens to
the song of the nightingale, his heart aches ., it is a feeling experienced due to excessive joy at the
bird's song. That is so say, the happiness that he shares is so intense that it becomes an aching
pleasure, a pleasure felt as pain.
The poet feels that a numbness creeps over him—that his senses have been paralysed as if he had
taken some sleep inducing drink (narcotic) like hemlock or some sedative drink made from opium. This
again is due to excessive happiness at the bird's song, the joy that he feels overpowers his senses. In a
minute the poet seems to forget his surroundings and is rapt in the song of the nightingale. He feels as if
he had sunk into Lethe (the river of forgetfulness in Greek and Roman mythology, one of the rivers of the
underworld or Hades).
The souls of the dead, according to ancient Greek belief, had to drink from Lethe before they entered
the Hades, the home of the dead.
The aching pleasure that the poet feels is not because he is envious of the bird singing so joyously but
because he feels too happy in the happiness of the nightingale. The result is that he is completely lost in
it.
The poet loves the bird as it sings like a Dryad (wood nymph) who is supposed to be the presiding
deity of the forest in Greek mythology. The poet regards the bird as the spirit of joy that is found in the
woodland world. The poet imagines the nightingale to be a spirit of the wood-land singing of the glories
of summer so spontaneously in some "far off scene, of woodland mystery and beauty".
Melodious green: a green plot of ground, overgrown with beech trees and resounding with the
melody or music of the bird's song.
Shadows numberless: light and shade falling upon the grassy plot as the light of the sun filters
through the foliage of trees.
Singest of summer: Probably it was due to the drugging effect that the poet felt so as the
poem was written in the spring season.
Full throated ease: a.rich and condensed expression. Like an expert musician, the nightingale is
straining her throat to the fullest, yet the song is not strained but natural and spontaneous.
Stanza II
The Poet shows an intense desire to escape or pass into the delightful world of the nightingale,
leaving the miserable world of the Man. He seeks the help of wine to effect this escape.
Keats longs for a draught of the richest wine, rare old wine cooled in the deep cellars of the earth
for long years. It should be rich with the romantic spirit of the spring-season when festivities are held in
honour of Flora, the goddess of spring, by the grape gatherers in the warmer regions of Southern
France (Provence).
25
In other words, the wine that the poet would like to drink, should be rich with its associations of the
rustic and merry making activities like song and dance held in honour of Flora in the country green (the
village common) by the sunburnt Italian and French grape gatherers.
Italy and Provence being in South of Europe are comparatively warm hence the natives of these
regions are 'sunburnt' as we Indians are. People in South regions of Europe are more cheerful and
romantic because the climate itself is inspiring these qualities.
Warm South: wine prepared in the warm regions of Italy and Provence. The poet does not want
ordinary wine, but one rich in contents and distilling all the romantic associations and spirit of the warm
southern regions especially of France and Italy. The greenness of the happy earth, the sweetness of the
flowers, the mirth and mystic of the sunburnt children of Provence. All things should combine to add to
its flavour, taste and delicacy.
Blushful: red. Note that good wines are generally colourless. But the poet, to indulge his taste for
rich colours, must have it red.
Hippocrene: Greek word for the fountain, of Horse. A fountain on Mt. Helicon in Greece, is said to
have arisen, where Pegasus kicked Helicon. Its was sacred to the Muses who preside over all arts and
poetry. Its waters were said to be capable of imparting poetic inspiration. Here it means stimulant of
fancy or poetic inspiration.
Beaded bubbles: bead like bubbles.
Winking...brim: it is a graphic description of the idea of effervescence. As old, well-fermented wine
is poured into a glass or beaker, bead like bubbles rise to the brim of the glass and then burst and
disappear.
Purple stained mouth: the mouth of the glass or its brim is stained purple with the frothy
wine.
The poet desires for a beaker full of the wine of the fountain of Hippocrene with the bubbles I
shining at the surface and even the mouth of the beaker may be stained with the purpl e or red
colour of the wine.
Note: "The poet desired wine as a means of escape from the pain of his own thoughts and of the
world". By drinking the wine Keats hopes to be absorbed wholly in the nightingale's song and thus be
happy with the bird in the shady wood.
These lines bring out clearly one of the characteristics of Keats as a romantic poet —his
sensuouness.
We have an abundance of sensuous imagery in this staza where the poet expresses a passionate
desire for some Provencal wine or wine from the fountain of muses. The original and highly expressive
pharases like "blushful Hippocrene,`beaded bubbles Winking at the brim', 'embalmed darkness', 'are
highly pleasing to the sense of sight and sense of taste. Matthew Arnold says, "Keats as a poet is
abundantly and enchantingly sensuous".
Stanza III
Pain and misery of life is depicted. The stanza starts with the poet's intense longing to escape from
the world of pain and misery and to become one with the bird and its happy woodlandlife. In the very
effort to forget his own misery or melancholy, Keats remembers only too acutely, the universal tragedy of
human destiny, the ills that assail life from all quarters sparing neither age, nor sex nor beauty. Man
suffers from boredom, disgust and despair, from irritation and feverish excitement. Misery is widespread.
People helplessly hear each other groan. All those things which we value most—youth, beauty and', loveare subject to disease and decay. A thinking person is subject to grief and trouble. Keats feels bitterly that
Love and Beauty,-the two things that he desired most are short-lived. The thought of it fills him.with
sadness.
26
Stanza IV
Gloomy thoughts about human destiny are soon dismissed together with the possibility of wine as an
escape from them. Soon, the vehicle of flight is no longer wine but poetic fancy or imagination. He is
already with the nightingale among the branches of trees in a summer garden hidden from the light of the
moon who like a fairy queen holds her court in the sky surrounded by her courtiers i.e. the stars. [Poetic
imagination helps the poet to pass from the real world to the ideal world.] Although the moon is
shining in majestic glory in the sky, it is only when the night breezes sway the branches and part the
leaves that the gleams of moonlight somewhat lessen the darkness under the trees full of green foliage
and along the zigzag moss-covered paths between them.
verdurous glooms — the green shadows of the forest
heaven — the (moonlit) sky
Note: Poetic fancy is a state of mental exaltation.
Stanza V
The poet is already with the bird in the forest in imagination. The place is dark but filled with the
perfume from the flowers growing on the bushes around his feet. Though he cannot see, from the scent
emanating from the flowers he can guess what flowers are at his feet or what blosooms are above his
head. He can feel more than the sensory eye can see. The atmosphere is filled with the sweet fragrance of
flowers. From the sweet smell he can name several flowers and plants that bloom there. He calls the
darkness 'embalmed darkness.' He guesses that the white hawthorn, the egalantine, the violet, the wild fruit
trees, the first flower of mid-summer (middle of May) the musk rose which is soon to blossom and which
is full of dew and honey to which the buzzing bees are attracted by its fragrance, are around the place.
Soft incense: a delicate, soothing perfume (A reference to the sense of smell).
The seasonable month: the month which is favourable to the growth of season's flowers (Spring).
Pastoral. egalantine: .a kind of wild rose which grows in country places.
Fast fading violets: short lived violets.
musk: a substance with a very strong smell, obtained from the male musk deer and used for making
perfumes.
Mid-May's eldest child: the first flower to bloom in the middle of May,
The coming musk rose: the musk rose with the fragrance of musk which is about to bloom.
This was most probably written in early May.
Dewy wine: full of dew and honey (dew drops in the cup of the flower are referred to as wine
by the poet).
Murmurous haunt: haunted by flies or bees with a murmuring or buzzing sound.
embalmed darkness: The whole darkness of the garden has been made fragrant by the flowers
of the season (darkness filled with a balmy fragrance). Embalmed is also associated with death.
Stanza V shows the delighted response to the sensuous beauty of the physical world. The poet is not
describing what he actually sees around him. He tells us explicitly that there is no light for him to
distinguish the flowers growing on the ground and the blossoms on the trees and hedges. He can only
guess what they are from their scents.
Notice that 'soft incense', 'embalmed darkness', 'dewy wine', 'seasonable month', are word
pictures. Only Keats who is abundantly and enchantingly sensuous can convert incense and perfume into
something virtually solid. In this stanza we can say he has woven round scent, warmth, colour, taste and
sound into a texture of unforgettable beauty.
27
Stanza VI
While listening to the song of -the nightingale in the dark, the poet. feels that it would be 'a luxurious
experience' to die at such a moment, to fade away from existence without suffering any pain at the
mystic hour of midnight while listening to the rapturous and ecstatic song of the nightingale. In fact
the poet wants to perpetuate this moment of enchantment, and ecstasy. It is rich to die now for the
nightingale's song will be a funeral prayer for Keats and he will die listening to it. The nightingale would
go on singing even when he is dead and can no longer hear it.
Note: By the end of this stanza human and nightingale's worlds have been entirely separated.
Call'd...names: have addressed him by many endearing epithets.
Stanza VII
The idea of death gradually brings him back to reality. The process starts in stanza 7 and ends in
stanza 8.
The poet calls the nightingale an immortal bird. The nightingale has now been transformed into a
symbol of its race and the song of the nightingale heard by countless generations over centuries is
symbolised by its permanence. The- poet here means that the song or voice of the nightingale carries the
same freshness and music as it did in the past and it will continue to do so in future (though this
particular bird will die).
Generations of nightingales follow one another, and they remain immortal in their songs, their song is
as sweet and charming today as it was in ancient days, in the Bible-history or even in .fairy romance.
Immortal bird: The epithet is justified if the nightingale is taken as the type and symbol of its
race.
No hungry...down: the bird is not crushed to death in a savage struggle for existence such as is
waged in human society.
The song of the nightingale that the poet now hears is exactly the same song that was heard in
ancient times. It is this characteristic that makes the poet give the title of immortality to the nightingale.
The bird's song opens. the flood-gates of the poet's memory and takes him into the far-off age of
legendary romance. It is the same song that the nightingale has been pouring out since the beginning of
the world, the same song which in ancient days must have been heard by king and peasent alike; the
same song which Ruth heard when she stood sad and lonely in the cornfield of a strange land; the same
song to hear which maidens dwelling in magic castles, must have opened their casement windows in
desolate fairy lands. The magical effect of the song has been highlighted.
These castles are built on rocks of stormy seas in forlorn fairy land. The song of the nightingale must
have cheered the heart of a disconsolate princess held in duress by her demon lover.
this passing night: to-night. emperor and clown: the greatest and the humblest. Clown here means common person.
the sad heart of Ruth: A reference to the story of Ruth in the Old Testament.
Ruth, a woman of Moab, was married to a Jew in Moab whose father had come from
Bathelehem of Judea. After her husband died, she migrated with her mother-in-law Naomi to the
distant ancestoral land of Judea i.e., Bethlehem. There she began to glean corns of barley left by the
reapers in the field of Boaz, a distant relation of her father-in-law. He treated her kindly and
afterwards married her.
The Bible story does not say that Ruth was homesick or sad, but this would be natural even if
the sense of duty to her mother-in-law had led her to leave her home.
sick: pining, longing.
alien corn: foreign fields as she migrated from Moab.
28
The poet explains why he considers the nightingale immortal.
In Romantic stories like Arabian Nights, we hear of enchanted castles in which princesses are
imprisoned in magic castles and their magic windows open on the stormy waves of a wild sea;
opening and shutting automatically by magic. As the nightingale passes over the enchanted castle
singing its magic song, windows open of themselves to allow some imprisoned princess to hear its
song.
fairy lands forlorn: some far off deserted uninhabited lands of the fairies or legendary
countries of romance as in the Arabian Nights.
forlorn: solitary or deserted.
"These two lines condense the whole world of romantic imagination and conjure up by their
suggestion, the very world of romance. In all poetry, there is no better expression of the spi rit of
romance than these lines”.
We see the voice of the nightingale is made immune first to history then to geography; it can
establish a rapport with dead generations or fairy lands.
Stanza VIII
The mood of exaltation is over. The use or thought of the word `forlon' acts as a rude reminder
to the poet of his own forlorn or solitary condition (Mention of the world 'forlorn' has broken the
spell of imagination). The word has brought him back to reality. It is just like the tolling of a bell that
reminds him of some forgotten work. It reminds the poet of the realities of life which he had
forgotten on account of the nightingale's song.
The poet finds that after all the powers of fancy are exaggerated. Man cannot ignore the sad
realities of life even with the help of fancy or imagination. As the spell of imagination breaks, the
poet feels that the bird has flown away and he bids good-bye to the nightingale. He is disappointed
in man's imaginative faculty, which is commonly believed to have great powers of making people
forget themselves and their surroundings. In his case, the spell of imagination has been short lived,
he is already awake to the sad realities of life.
The poet is not sure whether he had been seeing a vision in sleep or dreaming while awake.
"Was it a vision of a waking dream? Fled is that music. Do I wake or sleep?" Ther e is at least one
clear change in the situation. He has ceased to hear the nightingale's song. How is he to explain
this?
plaintive anthem: song full of complaint. It refers to the legendary story of the nightingale. Her
human name was Philomel. They were two sisters. Her elder sister married and went off with her
husband. But she loved her so much that she sent back her husband to fetch Philomel. On the way,
he raped her and to conceal his secret, he cut off her tongue. The gods turned her into a
nightingale, and she goes about pouring out her complaint against that injustice.
5.04 Some Observations
Ode to a Nightingale contains the spirit of romance and it is extremely passionate and sensuous in its
descriptions and expressions. The sensuousness of Keats should not be misunderstood for delight in cheap
sensual pleasures. Keats's sensuousness is in fact a higher conception of beauty. He presents the
details with such expressions that the reader's eyes, ears and other senses preceive and appreciate
and feel what he describes.
The descriptions of the poet's desire for a cup of cool Provencal wine tasting of flowers, dance and
sunburnt mirth and his longing for a beaker of the warm southern wine which would inspire him like the
water from the fountain sacred to the muses (Hippocrene) are highly sensuous and appeal to the reader's
sense of sight, and smell. Equally pleasing to the senses is the description of the flowers and plants in
the embalmed darkness of the forest and of the white hawthorn, fast fading violets, mask rose, mid-
29
may's eldest child etc. These are concrete pictures which the reader can see easily with his inward eye
and derive an aesthetic satisfaction.
Allied to his sensuousness is the love of nature, again an aspect of romanticism revealed in this
poem. The Nightingale's song is dear to the poet. Nothing can surpass the delicate beauty of the heavenly
light that falls when blown by the breezes, on the 'verdurous glooms' and 'winding mossy ways'. In this
ode as in several others, we find a note of sadness, in the background of the music of Nature and Art.
Melencholy is again a romantic quality. Stanza III depicts the pain and misery of life and transitoriness of
the things we value most—youth, beauty and love. Keats sees this in contrast to the happiness of the
nightingale's world.
The last three lines of the Stanza VII, "The same that oft times hath/Charmed magic casements,
opening on the foam/Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn" breathe the spirit of romance. Keats's love
of the sensuous luxury of the medieval atmosphere is also visible here.
It may also be noted that the poem is highly self revealing which is again a romantic quality. With all
these qualities, the poem finds a responsive echo in the hearts of the reader.
The poem is an expression of an intense personal mood of the poet, a sense of pity for himself (presented
obliquely) and sympathy for humanity, and as such it possesses much human interest. It expresses a
familiar mood, a desire for death, for release from this worldly life of sorrow and struggle, from fever
and fret of this life into the world of the nightingale which to the poet is a world of lasting peace and
happiness, of music, joy and beauty. Thus we get a painful contrast between the world of Man and the
world of the Nightingale. The world of the Nightingale appeals to the poet for it is a world of richness
and beauty, of deep sensuousness and of natural loveliness.
The nightingale's song becomes merely a peg on which to hang the varied wealth of the poet's mind,
his sense of beauty, his sense of music and his sense of sadness arising out of the transitories of
human happiness and struggle of human life.
A critic says, 'His mind is lifted out of the thought of pain by the song of the nightingale which
his imagination transmutes into the immortal voice of romance vibrating with all the remembered
melodies of the past. When the music is fled, his spirit turns for lonly back to earth and seems to
say to us, "Life with all its contradictions, pain and pleasure, beauty and ugliness is still beautiful. It
must be accepted or faced bravely." (Mary Samuel)
5.05 A Critical Analysis of the "Ode".
The poem consists of eight stanzas. In the first stanza we find the speaker 'benumbed, drained, as it
were of all sensation through listening to the nightingale's song'. Yet paradoxically he experiences pain
and heartache. Then he claims to share in the bird's song. The joy pain paradox, which he in his "Ode
to Melancholy" asserts to be an essential characteristic of human existence, has a deeper meaning in
the context of the "Ode to a Nightingale". The poet's (speaker's) happiness in empathy with the bird is
so intense and profound that it verges on pain. Their painful happiness crosses all limits so he feels
exhausted and overcome by "drowsy numbness". He is not envious of the bird's 'happy lot', he can
imaginatively participate in it. He also realises that his desire to join the nightingale may be eventually
thwarted; he cannot avoid 'envy' as he longs for 'the unearthly felicity enjoyed by the "Dryad of the
trees". The happiness is caused by 'the momentarily shared ecstasy', the pain is due to 'the foreknowledge of the ultimate frustration. Similarly conscious cuts with pain across the drugged
numbness of the opening lines before it temporarily recedes to make room for the empathetic
identification with the bird's "full-throated ease"."
E.C. Pettet has demonstrated how the dull-half rhyming nasals of the opening quatrain, interrupted
by assonance of the a in aches and pains and modulating into clean ringing long e and o sounds of trees,
melodious beechen green and 'full-throated ease" at the end of the stanza, reflect the speaker's pain
and numbness in contrast with the bird's happiness. The Oxymoron of painful numbness and
implied paradox of drugged happiness convey a peculiar state completely cut off from reality, with
the poet poised for the visionary flight.
30
The speaker in the next stanza explicitly mentions his. impulse to journey into the happy realm of
the ‘nightingale and wine will be the vehicle. The poet’s throat wisher for a draught of vintage”,
which brings into play all the five senses. First we have 'the complex synaesthetic imagery which
conjures up the warm mirthful song and dance of Provencal in the cool taste and bubbling sound of the
wine, and the seductive, sensual blushing of Hippocrene. The imagery suggests that only through the life of
senses one could journey into transcendence. Note the blushful Hippocrene is the fountain of the
everlasting Muses and symbol of poetic inspiration. The speaker with the help of wine would like to
journey the realm of the immortals—the home of the Nightingale, away from the actual world.'
In the third stanza the speaker presents 'the ode's dialectic pattern by contrasting the imagined ideal
world with our temporal world of human wretchedness.' Here in this world a fatally ill youth like Torn
Keats "with an exquisite love of life" falls into "a lingering state". (Keats's Letters I, 293) and "grows pale
and spectre thin and dies". Some critics have disparaged this stanza as "bad rhetoric" or attributed
"weakness" to Keats for referring to his brother's death. But there is. nothing 'wrong in depicting an
incident for the object Of the Ode is to present a symbolic conflict between the worlds of time and
timelessness. Inifact the diction, imagery, symbolism, rhyme and "the prosaic matter of fact tone" of this
"completely disintoxicated and disenchanted stanza" (F.R. Leavis) dramatise the contrast between the
bird's unself-conscious harmony with the natural surrounding ("among the leaves") and man's awareness
of transitoriness, disappointment, disease and death, which leads to his alienation from his surroundings.
The rhythmic flow of the line "what though amongst the leaves hast never known" is disrupted with the
cataloguing of human ills. "The weariness, the fever, the fret" (Line reminds us of Wordsworth's "Tintern
Abbey" Lines 39-40, 52-53). Here the word obstructs the fluent flow of the rhythm and diverts our
attention to the human transitoriness ("few sad, last grey hairs," "pale and spectre thin and dies"). Why
does the poet desire to fade away, to dissolve, to forget? The poet would like to fade away into the
nightingale's forest to overcome his "leaden eyed despair" his visionary flight would carry him away from
suffering mankind towards Dryad's forest dim (1-20), the magic kingdom of Queen Moon and starry
fays (36-37) or easeful Death (50). All these wishes are paradoxical and futile quest for permanence
and unconsciousness.
Keats from the very beginning of the Ode prepares the reader for his equivocal death-wish. We
have numbness, hemlock, Letheward movement in stanza one, then the desire "to dissolve and quite
forget"(line 21) and "the embalmed darkness" (43) leaf-buried "fast fading violets" of a landscape not
seen but felt, a half-supernatural bower. (Stanza 5). In this stanza the poet penetrates into the essence of
things with his imaginative power and gives us a picture of transcendence as if the "happiness on Earth"
experienced in the first stanza were here "repeated in a finer tone" (Keats's letters I 185).
The poet dreams of an easeful painless transition to a higher mode of existence—the presentation of
the easeful death differs from the description of the frightening palsy ridden old age, or spectre thin
youth or consumptive patients in the second stanza. Death would "take into the air" the poet's "quiet
breath" while "the nightingale is pouring forth (its) soul abroad/In such an ecstasy". Death seems 'rich'
for the poet would die into the eternal music. Note death only seems 'rich'. Although in line 35 the poet
claims "Already with thee", but he had never left the earth, he has perhaps been entrancingly gazing at
the direction of the song for here his dull consecutively reasoning brain in a brutal truncating
monosyllable tells him that in death he would "become a sod".
The recollection of the earch bound condition ending in the silence of death once again stirs the
speaker to contemplate on the music of the bird, which he is still hearing and he describes the nightingale
as 'Immortal'. "Thou was not born for death, Immortal Bird". Critics have been debating why Keats
has addressed the nightingale as Immortal bird Is the nightingale immortal because "of its imperishable
song" (Colvin), because it stands for its species (Lowell) because it is a Dryad (Garrod), because it
symbolises poetry (Muir) or art (Hough) or because it lacks "man's self consciousness" and is "in
harmony with its world" (Brooks and Warren). Andrew J. Kappel finds its immortality in its "native
naturalness" and its "obliviousness to transience".
Ruth's home sickness is not mentioned in the Bible. Many critics agree with Garrod who suggests that
the idea of a home sick gleaner is derived from Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper. Victor J. Lams finds
31
the influence of Milton's nightingale on the lines. Ruth's homesickness and alienation underlines the natural
feeling of estrangement one experiences in an 'alien' land. "Just as the nightingale's immortality fills the
void left by Keats's recognition of his own mortality, so Ruth sick for home standing 'in tears amid the
alien corn' mirrors the poet's need for perfect union with the ideal other, his yearning for the
nightingale's harmony with its environment, and his estrangement from the natural world in which the
unconsciousness grain achieves fulfillment by being harvested."
By presenting fancy as "a deceiving elf' the speaker prepares himself to accept nature's cyclical
process of death (fading violets) and birth (the coming musk rose) depicted in stanza five. The
recognition of the inevitability of change, of death does not stop his yearning for immortality. He ends
the Ode with a question—was he dreaming or sleeping. In the "Ode to A Nightingale" the speaker
remains baffled by the burden of the mystery and the painful gulf between eternity (immortality) and an
impermanent realm in which old age wastes generations hungry for permanence and perfection. Both in
"La Belle" and "the Nightingale" the protagonist is driven back from a transcendental world to sordid
actuality. (adapted).
32
6 -Some Critical Views
(a) Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale"
(Cleanth Brooks)
This poem is essentially a reverie induced by the poet's listening to the song of the nightingale. In
the first stanza the poet is just sinking into the reverie; in the last stanza, he comes out of the
reverie and back to a consciousness of the actual world in which he and all other human beings
live. The first lines of the poem and the last, therefore, constitute a sort of frame for the reverie
proper.
The poet has chosen to present his reverie largely in terms of imagery—imagery drawn from
nature—the flowers and leaves, etc., associated with the bird actually, or imaginatively in myth and
story. The images are elaborate and decorative and the poet dwells upon them lovingly and leisurely,
developing them in some detail as pictures. It is not the sort of method that would suit a poem
exhibiting a rapid and dramatic play of thought; but one remembers the general character of the
poem. The loving elaboration and slowed movement resemble the slowed movement of meditative
trance, or dream, and therefore is appropriate to the general mood of this poem. The imagery, then,
in its elaboration is not merely beautifully decorative, but has a relation to the general temper of the
whole poem.
The poet, with his desire to escape from the world of actuality, calls for a drink of wine
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen
but the wish for the draught of wine is half fancy. The poet lingers over the description of the
wine, making it an idealised and lovingly elaborated thing, too. We know that it is not a serious and
compelling request. The grammar of the passage itself tells us this: after "O, for a draught of
vintage!" the poet interposes seven lines of rich description identifying the wine with the spirit of
summer and pastoral joys and with the romantic associations of Provence, and finally gives a
concrete picture of a bubbling glass of the wine itself before he goes on to tell us why he wishes the
draught of wine.
The third stanza amplifies the desire to get away from the world of actuality. The word fade in
the last line of the second stanza is echoed in the next stanza in "Fade far away, dissolve..." The
implication is that the poet wishes for a dissolution of himself; a wish that later in the poem
becomes an explicit pondering on death as something attractive and desirable. The principal aspects
of the actual world the poet would like to escape are just those aspects of it that seem opposed to the
world conjured up by the bird's song: its feverish hurry, the fact that in it youth dies and beauty
fades. The world that the nightingale seems to inhabit is one of deathless youth and beauty. This
idea, too, is to be developed explicitly by the poet in the seventh stanza.
In the fourth stanza the poet apparently makes a sudden decision to attempt to leave actual life
and penetrate to the world of the imagination. The apparent suddenness of the decision is reflected
in the movement of the first line of the stanza,
Away! away! for I will fly to thee
But he will fly to it by exciting his mind not with wine but with poetry. And in line 35 the poet . has
apparently been successful: "already with thee," he says. There follows down to the opening of the
sixth stanza a very rich description of the flowery, darkened thicket in which the nightingale is
singing.
The poet's wish for dissolution, which he expresses in the third stanza, becomes in the sixth a
wish for death itself, an utter dissolution. But the idea as repeated receives an additional twist.
Earlier, his wish to fade away was a desire to escape the sorrow and sordidness of the real world.
33
Now even death itself seems to the poet an easy and attractive thing; and, more than that, it seems
even a sort of positive fulfillment to die to the sound of the nightingale's high requiem.
But the nightingale at the height of its singing does not seem to be subject to death. The poet
describes the effect of the nightingale's song by two incidents drawn from the remote past—as if he
believed that the nightingale he now 'hears had literally lived forever. The two incidents are chosen
also to illustrate two different aspects of the bird’s, song. The first, the song as heard by Ruth, is an
incident taken from biblical literature, and gives the effect of the song as it reminded the homesick
girl of her native land. The second, hinting at some unnamed romance of the Middle Ages,
gives the unearthly Magic of the song. With the first wcarkl..of the last stanza, the poet breaks out of
his reverie. He catches up the word "forlorn," 'which he has just used in 'describing one of the imagined
scenes induced by his reverie, and suddenly realises that it applies all too• accurately to himself. The
effect is almost that of an abrupt stumbling: the chance .employment of a particular word in one
of the richly imaginative scenes induced by the bird's song suddenly comes home to him—with
altered weight and tone, of course—to remind him that it is he who is forlorn, whose plight is
hopeless. With the new and chilling meaning of "forlorn" the song. of the nightingale itself alters:
what had a moment before been an ecstatic "high requiem" becomes a "plaintive anthem." The
song becomes fainter: what had had power to make the sorrowing man "fade...away" (lines 20,
21) from a harsh and bitter world, now itself "fades" (line 75), and the speaker is left alone in
the silence.
The vitality of the poem, of course, lies in its imagery. The imagery is so rich and resonant, taken
line by line. that it is a temptation to treat it as a amazingly rich decoration. Consider, for example, the
description of the wine in the second stanza. The poet uses the term vintage rather than wine because
of the associations of vintage with age and excellence. It tastes of Flora (goddess of flowers) and the
country green (a land predominantly fruitful and rich) and of dance and Provencal song (associations
with the merry country of the troubadours and sunburnt mirth. Mirth cannot, of course,' be literally
sunburnt, but the sensitive reader will not be troubled by this. The phrase is a condensation of the
fuller phrase: mirth of hearty folk who- live close to nature and to the earth and whose sunburnt faces
and arms indicate that they live in to nature. These associations of the wine with Provence and with all
that Provence implies are caught up and corroborated by another bold and condensed phrase: "full of
the warm South." For the word South carries not only his associations of warmth but also of the
particular South that the poet has just been the south of France.
This, for a rather inadequate account of only one item of the sort of description that fills the poem.
One who examines other of the poem's passages in this way will notice that Keats does not sacrifice
sharpness of perception to mere pettiness. Again and again it is the sharp and accurate
observation that gives the richness a validity. For example,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves
The passage is not merely beautiful and rich: it embodies acute observation. We feel that the
poet knows what he is talking about. A poorer poet would try only for the decorative effect and would
fail. Moreover, much of the suggestiveness resides, also in the choice of precise details. Many a poet
feels that, because the stimulus to the imagination makes for an indefinite richness of association, this
indefiniteness is aroused by vague, general description. On the contrary, the force of association is greatest
when it is aroused by precise detail. For example; consider the passage most famous for its
suggestiveness.
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn
After all, these lines present a scene that is precisely visualised : If the casements opening on the
seas and framing the scene were omitted, the general, vague words, perilous, faery, and forlorn,
would not be sufficient to give the effect actually transmitted.
34
One may, however, read the "Ode to a Nightingale" at a deeper level. Indeed, if we are to do
full justice to the general architecture of the poem and to the intensity of many of the individual
passages, one• must read it at this deeper level.
A basic problem—already hinted at in earlier paragraphs of this analysis—has to do with the
speaker's attitude toward death. If he wishes to escape from a world overshadowed by death, why
then does he go on to conceive of that escape as a kind of death? The nightingale's song makes him
yearn to leave a world where "youth grows pale...and dies." yet, as we remember, the highest rapture that
he can conceive of is to die—"to cease upon the midnight with no pain." The last phrase, "with no pain," offers
only a superficial resolution of our problem. We shall not find our answer in distinguishing between the "easeful
Death" of line 52 and some agonizing death. The speaker in this poem is not saying merely that he would like
to die if he could be sure that his death would be painless.
The death with which he falls "half in love" is not a negative thing, but is conceived of as
a rich and positive experience. To see how Keats brings this about will require a re-examination of the
whole poem. We might well begin with the beginning of the poem, for the ambiguous relationship
between life and death, joy and pain, intensity of feeling and numb lack of feeling, runs
through the poem, and is to he found even in the opening lines.
The song of the nightingale has a curious double effect. The speaker's "heart aches" through the very
intensity of pleasure—by "being too happy in thy happiness." But the song also acts as an opiate, making the
listener feel drowsy and numbed. Now, an opiate is used to deaden pain, and the song of the bird does
deaden (see stanzas three and four) the pain of the mortal world in which "to think is to be full of sorrow."
A reader may be tempted therefore to say that the nightingale's song gives to the sorrowing man a little surcease
from his unhappiness. But the experience is more complex than this: the song itself causes the pain. Thus, though
the song means to the hearer life, freedom, and ease, its effect is to deaden him and render him drowsy.
Are we to say, then, that the poet is confused in this first stanza? No, because the apparent contradictions
are meaningful and justified in terms of the poem as a whole. First, as to the realistic basis of the opiate
metaphor: the initial effect of a heavy opiate may be painfully numbing. Second, as to the psychological
basis: what is pleasurable, if carried to an extreme degree, becomes painful. The nightingale's song, which
suggests a world beyond mortality, gives the hearer happiness, but by reminding him of his own mortal state,
gives him pain. But the full implications of this paradox of pleasure-pain, life-death, immortal-mortal require
the whole of the poem for their full development.
We have commented upon what the speaker wishes to escape from; he has himself made clear the
primary obstacle to his escape. It is the "dull brain" that "perplexes and retards." The opiate, the draught of
vintage for which the speaker has called, the free play of the imagination—all have this in common: they
release one from the tyranny of the "dull brain." The brain insists upon clarity and rigid order; it is an order
that must be "dissolved" if the speaker is to escape into, and merge with, the richer world for which he
longs.
But the word that the speaker uses to describe this process is "fade," and his entry into this world of the
imagination is symbolised by a fading into the rich darkness out of which the nightingale sings. We associate
darkness with death, but this darkness is instinct with the most intense life. How is the darkness insisted
upon—and thus defined? The nightingale sings in a plot of "shadows numberless"; the speaker would leave the
world "unseen" and join the bird in "the forest dim"; he would "fade far away"—would "dissolve"; and when he
feels that he is actually with the nightingale, he is in a place of "verdurous glooms."
Having attained to that place, he "cannot see." Though the poem abounds in sensuous detail, and appeals so
powerfully to all the senses, most of the images of sight are fancied by the speaker. He does not actually
see the Queen-Moon or the stars. He guesses at what flowers are at his feet. He has found his way into a
warm "embalmed darkness." The last adjective means primarily "filled with incense," "sweet with balm," but it
must also have suggested ,death—in Keats's day as well as in ours. In finding his way imaginatively into the dark
covert from which the bird is singing, the speaker has approached death. He has wished to fade far away,
"dissolve, and quite forget"; but the final dissolution and the ultimate forgetting are death. True, death here is
apprehended in a quite different fashion from the death depicted in stanza three: here the balm is the natural perfume
35
of growing flowers and the gloom is "verdurous," with suggestions of rich organic growth. But the fading has
been complete—he is completely encompassed with darkness.
It is worth remarking that Keats has described the flowery covert with full honesty. If his
primary emphasis is on fertility and growth, still he recognises that death and change have
their place here too: the violets, for instance, are thought of as "fast-fading." But the atmosphere of
this world of nature is very different, to be sure, from that of the human world haunted by death, where
"men sit and hear each other groan." The world of nature is a world of cyclic change (the
"seasonable month," "the coming musk-rose," etc.) and consequently can seem fresh and
immortal, like the bird whose song seems to be its spirit.
The poem, then, is not only about death and deathlessness, or about the actual and the
ideal; it is also about alienation and wholeness. It is man's necessary alienation from nature that
invests death with its characteristic horror. To "dissolve"—to "fade"—into the warm darkness is to
merge into the eternal pattern of nature. Death itself becomes something positive—a flowering—a
fulfillment. Keats has underlined this suggestion very cunningly in the sixth stanza. The ancients
thought that at death, a man's soul was breathed out with his last breath. Here the nightingale is pouring
forth its "soul" and at this high moment the man listening in the darkness would be glad to die. Soul
and breath become interchangeable. The most intense expression of life (the nightingale's
ecstatic sang) invites the listener to breathe forth his soul (death).
The foregoing paragraphs may suggest the sense in which the speaker calls the nightingale immortal. The
nightingale symbolises the immortality of nature, which, harmonious with itself remains
through all its myriad changes unwearied and beautiful. We need not suppose that the speaker, even
in his tranced reverie, thinks of the particular biological mechanism of flesh and bone and feathers as
deathless—any more than he thinks of the "fast-fading violets" and the "coming musk-rose" as
unwithering. Keats has clearly specified the sense in which the bird is immortal: it is in harmony
with its world—not, as man is, in competition with his ("No hungry generations tread thee
down"); and the bird cannot even conceive of its separation from the world which it knows and
expresses and of which it is a part ("Thou wast not born for death"). Man knows that he was
horn to die—"What thou among the leaves hast never known" —and that knowledge
overshadows man's life, and necessarily all his songs.
That knowledge overshadows this song, and gives it its special poignance. As the poem ends, the
speaker's attempt to enter the world of the nightingale breaks down. The music by means of which he
hoped to flee from his mortal world has itself fled—"is that music." The music that almost succeeded in
making him "fade far away" now itself "fades/Past the nearer meadows" and in a moment is "buried
deep/In the next valley-glades." The word "buried" here suggests a view of death very different from that
conjured up by "embalmed darkness" in the fifth stanza. Death here is bleak and negative. The poem
has come full circle.
A Note
This essay on "Ode to A Nightingale" by Cleanth Brooks will enable you to understand (a) the
"Ode" as a "reverie" (b) its imagery and (c) its deeper meaning that is its themes—death and
deathlessness; the actual and the ideal; alienation and wholeness.
36
(b) "The Ode to A Nightingale" (David Parkin)
In both the Odes—"Ode on A Grecian Urn" and "Ode to A Nightingale"—Keats achieves a
spacious lyric expression by focussing on a particular object and staying with it... by use of
a central symbol.
Although the range of "Ode to A Nightingale" is wider than the "Ode On a Grecian Urn", the poem
can also be regarded as the exploration or testing out of a symbol, and, compared with the Urn as a
symbol, the nightingale would seem to have both limitations and advantages...The
nightingale...has a living identity and sings to the senses, thus allowing a massive sympathetic
response... the song of the nightingale does not suggest something potentially eternal. It is
true in his order the poet momentarily makes it immortal, but he does so at the cost of destroying
any sympathetic union with it, and, in the logic of the poem, virtually compels it to fly away. Hence
the same sympathetic grip that makes the experience vivid to the point that one would wish to
prolong it, also forces the recognition that it must be short lived.
The dramatic development that takes place in the Ode lies in the gradual transformation of a
living nightingale into a symbol of visionary art. By means of the symbol the Ode explores the
co-sequences of a commitment to vision, and it does so comes close to implying that the
destruction of the protagonist is one of the results. In the verse previous to the Odes, Keats had
occasionally associated creative activity—whether visionary or not—with death. There is nothing
surprising in this. Many artists have expressed themselves in similar way, notions of withdrawal and selfimmolation are all readily suggested by creative enterprise. The distinction is partly that Keats makes
poetry of the theme, and partly that he gives it an individual bias. (Refer to Sleep and Poetry &
Edymion)...The nightingale "pouring forth" its "soul abroad" is both declaring its identity or 'soul'
and dying. But, of course, the nightingale is not thought to be literally dying. The point is that the
deity or the nightingale can sing without dying. But the Ode makes it clear, that man cannot
die in a visionary way.
For Keats progressively tended to connect death with purely visionary excursion—in other words,
with fantasy and dreams...the visionary flight usually begins with a partial loss of consciousness...The
"Ode to A Nightingale" begins with the poet in a state of "drowsy numbness" which, he says,
is, as though he had taken poison (hemlock) and were dying (lethe-wards had sunk"). The further
movement of the poet into the world of the nightingale also involves a steady movement
toward death and a momentary acceptance of it Then in the beginning of the stanza seven the
nightingale stands revealed for what it is, or rather what the poet, using it as a symbol, has
made of it. No longer part of the world, it is an "immortal Bird" living in a visionary realm. It is
almost analognous to La Belle Dame Sans Merci or Lamia luring men to fantasy and death. But, of
course, the attitude of the nightingale is quite different from that adopted to Lamia. Keats seems to feel
the attraction of what both Lamia and the Nightingale represent much more strongly in the "Ode", and as
a result the conflict is not resolved to the extent that it is in the later poem. Or perhaps one should simply
say that a different symbol would compel a different attitude.
As the poem opens, the poet hears the nightingale and participates in its life. The happiness he
shares is so intense that for the poet it becomes the paradoxically "aching pleasure" of the "Ode on
Melancholy", a pleasure felt as pain. (My heart aches, a drowsy numbness/pains...). But at the same
time this suspense or obliteration of conscious, waking faculties releases the imagination, which is
already turning upon the nightingale and seeing it as something more (or less) than a bird. It is a
Dryad from the Arcadian World...It's happiness is reiterated, really like both "the happy, happy
boughs" of the "Urn" and also "Psyche" is "the happy, happy dove".. Although the time is Mid-May,
the nightingale sings of summer, the time of fulfillment. But the nightingale now sings from "a plot
of beechen green," and is going to "fade away into the forest dim" and the poet wishes to fade with it.
Of this desire the appeal to wine is the first symbolic expression. It is a necessary gesture because
the poet in the numbness can scarcely respond to the song, and also because without a further
drugging the song is not an unmitigated pleasure... Wine was at one time or another associated with
37
imagination, with happiness, with "heaven", in short, with all that the nightingale represents.
Moreover, in the second stanza, wine resembles the nightingale in being associated with
summer happiness, song—"Provencal song and sun-burnt mirth". Like the "immortal bird", the wine
comes from "a long age" and the reiteration of the word full, the fullness of the beaker, suggests a
desire for an intense, glutted experiencing similar to the song of the nightingale.
But the impulse to leave the world leads to the recollection of autumnal human life. Mortal
existence, as the poet thinks of it, has a distorted and ghastly resemblance to his own state of mind in
the first stanza. As he hears the nightingale's song, so "men sit a nd hear each other groan".
The poet has been drowsy as though drugged, men are weary. He has been glutted or "too
happy" with the song of the bird, men are full of sorrow. (Wesserman in The Finer Tone points
out the contrast between the second and third stanzas). In human life "Beauty cannot keep her
lustrous eyes/Or new life pine at them beyond to morrow," There can be no actual prolonging either
of what is beautiful in itself or of an intense response to it. Further more except in moment of escape,
life inevitably involves pain, for "but to think" (which I take as meaning to be fully conscious rather
than in the numbed state favourable to visions) "is to be full of sorrow". At this point the poet is firmly
planted in the world of process—"Here". But his wish is still to "fade far away dissolve and quite forget",
to enter a visionary world of immortal, unmingled bliss, and the wish seems to be reinforced by his
recollection of "the weariness, the fever and the fret" of mortal experience. For the fourth stanza
opens by reiterating the will to escape with greater urgency and emotional force—"Away! away! for I
will fly to there". The vehicle of the flight is now no wine, ("Not chariot'd by Bacchus and his pards")
but Poesy, and in this context Poesy means visionary poetry or one might call it fantasy.
Supposing himself to be with the nightingale ("Already with thee") and associating with the forest and
with darkness, the poet now thinks about wine, the extended imagery of flowers represents a
momentary release achieved through the imagination, and indeed, the capability of the imagination is
dramatized in the poetry. In the darkness the poet can describe them all the better. The song-haunted
darkness stimulates the imagination to "guess each sweet". And the statement that the poet "cannot
see...what soft incense hangs upon the boughs," is a typical example of Keats's use of synethesia, but,
it is more than that, it is a vivid assertion of the power of imagination to see more than the
scenery eye can see. It converts the incense into something virtually solid so that, as one reads the
lines, it presents what is very close to visual image.
One can repeat all this by referring to the over-all metaphonic pattern on which the poem is
concerned. The Provencal word suggested by the wine comes as an early anticipation of the realm into
which one would wish to retreat. The continuing vehicle of escape is the song of the nightingale, for, as
the poet in his trance contemplates the nightingale, he sees it withdrawing further and further from the
human world.
In stanzas iv through vi, through most of which the poet feels himself to be with the nightingale, the
movement is not yet completed, and as the poem proceeds, the nightingale finally crosses into a realm
where the poet cannot follow. But there is momentary union, and in it the poet, standing in the forest, is
able to, like the nightingale, sing the summer even though the time of the year is only "mid-May", for the
process is actively taking place within the forest. The violets are "fast fading" and being replaced by the
"Coming Musk-rose", and as the poet, conscious of the process, thinks of the musk-rose, his imagination
leaps ahead to "the murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves". Here, of course, under the spell of the
nightingale and by means of the imagery of flowers, the poet is able to contemplate the process with a
serenity anticipating the Ode "To Autumn", but as "To Autumn" makes clear a strong commitment to
process leads to the thought of death and even permits one to acquiesce in it. In this connection, one
should note that the darkness is described as embalmed The primary sense of the word in this context
is perfumed, but there is also the suggestion of death, as though to be in the forest were a scented,
hushed burial.
Throughout the poem darkness has been gathering about the poet as he moves into the nightingale's
world—"there is no light", "I cannot see", "embalm'd darkness". Now the poet remains in the dark, still
hearing the song of the nightingale.
38
Darkling, I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Keats has often used "easeful death" as an escape symbol in his poems...The release Keats
meditates in death is not always conceived as merely quiet and easeful. It can also be "rich to die," in
that the poet, groping for a symbol of fulfillment or intensi ty, thinks of death as a positive
experience...
Throughout the "Ode" the poet has been steadily relinquishing' a grip on actuality until now, under the
influence_of the song, it has become possible to assert that death would be a climatic release and
outpouring describable in itself and the more desirable because it would bar his return to human world.
"Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes:"
"Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such as ecstasy"
But if death represents a form of escape more final and complete than the wine of Poesy, it does not
suggest a further union with the nightingale, or a prolongation of hearing its song:
"Still would's thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
"Land and sea, weakness and decline", Keats once wrote" are great separators, but death is the great
divorcer for ever". The final lines of the stanza represent the speaker's sudden recollection of this fact
and a return to actuality compelled :by recognising the direction in which he has been moving.
By the end of the sixth stanza, then, the human and nightingale worlds have been entirely sundered.
At once the poet turns directly to the nightingale in a passionate apostrophe." "Thou wasn't born for death,
immortal Bird!" ...in its distance from the poet the nightingale has been openly transferred into
symbol...Like the Urn ("Ode On a Grecian Urn"), which is compared to eternity, the bird is immortal and
its life is contrasted with "the passing night" or brief generations of man. Here, of course, Keats employs a
brilliant poetic tact justifying the symbolic assertion. By referring only to the voice of the nightingale,
he can identify it with all nightingales and so find a natural basis for claiming that like the Urn, it has
remained "in the midst of other woe/Than ours, a friend to man". It has been heard by all men—"emperor
and clown" (or rustic)—and perhaps its song "found a path/ Through the sad heart of Ruth."
But throughout the seventh stanza the nightingale, even as a symbol, continues to move farther away
from the human world. It is heard first by "emperor and clown" figures presumably from the historical
past, then by Ruth in a world of the Biblical Legend, and finally it is heard in "faery lands" and these
faery lands may be the faery lands or "elfin grot" of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"—a place which may
represent a destructive illusion. The faery lands are "forlorn" because man cannot live in them. For the
same reason the song of the nightingale is no more happy. Instead it is, "a requiem" or "plaintive
anthem". And as the poet awakens from his trance, there is even the suggestion that the vision stimulated
by the song of the nightingale may have been illusory for the poet bidding farewell to the vision he says:
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Finally one may note that it is not the bird that "fades" but it is song. and this does not happen until
the poet has been tolled back to his "sole self'. Thus if the departure represents the flight of a living bird, it
is also presented as the fading of a vision. Moreover the song does not merely fade. With a final ironic
reflection upon the theme of death it is described as "buried", as if to imply the denial of any possibility
39
of hearing it. And the poem ends with uncertainty and a question: was the process that has taken place a
momentary glimpse of Truth (a "vision"), or a musing subjective half dream; and is the poet's inability
to experience it now an awakening into a reality or a lapse into insensitivity:
Was it a vision or a waking dream?
Fled is the music...Do I wake or sleep?
The question is one that has haunted poetry ever since the romantic age and poets, writing their
own version of Keats's great Ode, have often used virtually an identical symbol...
(Adapted from David Parkin's The Quest for Permanence, the Symbolism of Wordsworth,
Shelley and
Keats (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1959)
Note: In this essay David Parkin has dealt with "Ode to A Nightingale" as a symbolic poem)
40
7 (a) To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatchev-es run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy. hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
—While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
41
(b) A Study of the Poem
7.01 Introduction:
In his spring Odes written in 1819 Keats deals with the themes of the inevitability of change and
death. He reveals that we can imaginatively create a world of permanent joy and beauty, but this
visionary world is not `eternal', since imagination or poetic fancy is a deceiving elf. We are soon
transported to the real world of mutability, hardships and changeability. The theme of inevitable
change is once again taken up in the To Autumn. Keats gives a naturalistic answer to the questions
posed about the changeability in the spring Odes and the Fall of Hyperion.
In a Letter of 21st September 1819, Keats writes: "How beautiful the scene is now —How
fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather—Dian skies—I
never liked stubble fields ;o much as now—Any better than the chilly green of the spring.
Somehow a stubble plain looks warm—in the same way that some pictures look warm—this struck me
so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed a poem." (Letter II, 167)
The pictures of warm autumn with its stubbles inspired Keats to write "To Autumn." Except in the
letter Dian skies, there is no reference to classical myths in the poem. The poem presents 'a calmer
response to beauty than the May Odes.' In the May Odes (Spring Odes) we are all the time aware of
the 'personal' presence of the poet but in To Autumn the poet's personality is submerged in the evocation
of the season. The poet graciously accepts the beauty of Autumn without probing the meaning of its
transcience.
`To Autumn" is considered to be a perfect poem because of its "flawless technique, its richness of
imagery and its breadth of gaze within the limits of its subject" (Deryun Chatwin—Notes on Keats's
Poetry and Prose).
To Keats Autumn is 'the time of fulfillment, plentitude and harvest. The whole poem is structured
in answer to the question posed at the beginning of the third stanza, "Where are the songs of spring?
Ay, where are they?" This powerful threat to the celebration of autumn calls up the alternative image of
autumn as the melancholy precursor of winter and death. The Ode's reply is silently argued through its
images and its plot. The annual cycle of the seasons, the movement from rebirth to death, is as natural to
man as it is to nature. Without autumn's movement into winter there could be no spring. Human and
natural life are intrinsically tied to the pattern of the change and renewal. Autumn's beauty is particular, to
itself, dependent upon the fact that it is neither winter, spring, nor summer. Hence "thou hast thy music
too". (John Bernard—John Keats)
7.02 The Poem:
The poem consists of three stanzas, each depicting a particular aspect or picture of autumn—its
beginning to its end. The plot develops from the preharvest ripeness (stanza one) to the contented country
side human beings busy in 'harvesting' (stanza two) and concludes with the poignant emptiness
following the completion of the harvest. Each stanza shows one phase of autumn and nature in a
different relationship to mankind.
The opening line—"season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"—sums up the character of autumn.
Autumn is a 'productive' season, a season of 'ripeness' and `maturity'—`mellowness'. And its mists
herald the approach of cold and damp winter season. The first stanza is loaded with meanings. Autumn
is "the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness", conspires with the "maturing sun" to fill "all the fruit
with ripeness to the core." The sun and the Autumn are "close bosom friends" so they secretly conspire
to fill the fruits to the core. The maturing sun may be considered a male figure and "Autumn" a female—
they mysteriously conspire to overload fruit and flowers. There is no indication of the presence of
human beings although the thatch eves, the moss'd Cottage-trees, gourd and bees point to the houses
of the inhabitants who might have planted these trees earlier. But it is the mysterious conspiracy of
the sun and the autumn which loads and blesses with fruit the vines, bends the cottage-trees with apples
and fills all fruit with ripeness to the core. The poet has predominantly used tactile imagery to highlight
42
natures' strange power to "plump" and "swell" the vegetable world. Thus the first stanza is crammed with
images suggesting plentifulness and fullness of vegetation—"load", "bend", "swell", "plumps"—we get
an insight into the fullness and ripeness to the core—of the hazel nuts. The seemingly endless budding
of flowers is also a result of the conspiracy. The bees are befooled. They think that the summer will
never end as if they pay no attention to the mist. "For summer has o'er brimmed their clammy cells."
The first stanza has skillfully presented the high autumn. Commenting on the first stanza Brian
Stone in his The Poetry of Keats observes. 'It (the poem) begins with a a subdued apostrophe to
Autumn: subdued because the personification goes only as far as suggesting a conspiracy with the sun
to work for ripeness. And for the rest of the first stanza ripeness, as conveyed chiefly by a succession of
powerful and simple verbs, is all. The vines are loaded with fruit the trees are bent by the weight of the
apples, gourds are swelled, hazel shells plumped, and late flowers budded for the bees, whose
clammy cells are accordingly over brimmed. The concentration on what happens inside small natural
growths such as fruits, nuts, and flowers impresses fullness, sweetness and warmth upon the mind, with
an interior sense of nature's plentitude. The human work of the season, the exterior physical scene,
the sky above, are yet to come."
The scene of stanza one is a cottage garden. The intimacy of the setting is suggested by "closebosom friend" and by the image of the bees' clammy cells. It appears to be "a small, tightly knit
world."
There is mobility in time and space as we go from stanza to stanza "The poem moves outwards in
space and time" The first stanza also suggests morning in the reference to mists, but in the next stanza
we come across the langour of mid-day heat. From the cottage the poem moves to the wider, yet limited',
span of space—to the fields, the grannary, the cider press etc. The second stanza concentrates on human
activities associated with the ripeness and abundance of the autumn. In the early hours of the day—
nature has been actively engaged in producing abundant fruits, flowers and warmth. Now it is noon
time. Autumn is presented 'as four figures completing harvest tasks.' They are apparently English
farmers but symbolically they stand for 'the beneficent co-operation between natural and human activity
which leads to harvest' (John Barnard). The picture of the four human figures creates the poem's "pastoral
idyll". There is some sort of ambiguity about these figures—whether they are men or women or both.
There is one characteristic common to at least three of them that is, "a kind of beautiful lethargy,
compounded of repletion and ecstatic acceptance of their roles in the fulfilment of the season." (Brian
Stone).
The first figure is perhaps that of a woman, 'sitting carelessly on the granary floor, Her hair softlifted by the winnowing wind'. 'Soft' is used to frame a compound world—soft-lifted, once again we
have soft in the third stanza "soft-dying day." 'Soft is a word of harmonious warmth.' The second figure
is presumably that of a man who is asleep "on a half-reaped furrow" "drowsed with the fume of the
poppies." He is so much drugged that he cannot finish the job. If the two figures are pictures of the
"blissful lethargy," the third one—a gleaner (apparently a woman for women and children usually did the
gleaning when the reaping was completed) is pictured walking on the bridge across a brook, trying to
balance herself so that the load on her head does not fall down. The last figure could be a man or a
woman. The figure is patiently and leisurely watching the oozings from a cyder press. 'All these
figures are ordinary human beings at their autumn occupations.'
It is interesting that the reaper is depicted with a hook not with a scythe. This description associates
the figure with the eighteenth century portrayals of Autumn as a man with a sickle, while the poppies in the
cornfield `suggest the presence of Ceres, the Roman goddess of corn and harvests.' (John Barnard.) The
reaper is sound asleep not because he is exhausted with work but because he is drugged by poppies 'is
arrested in mid action and thus Autumn has generously stopped the destruction of the beauty of "the
next swath and all its twined flower." With the exception of the gleaner other figures are inactive
and satiated.' John Barnard).
' The stanza two stresses the role of nature. The wind not only winnows. the grain, but also idly lifts
the sleeper's hair, the poppies drug the reaper, the cider-press's "last oozings hours by hours" seems to be
'more accomplished by the fruits themselves than by any human intervention. Human labour of
43
harvesting is dependent on nature's generosity for its accomplishment the stanza abounds in visual
imagery—pictorial presentation of activities.'
In the third stanza we move towards evening and setting sun and our attention is focused on the
distant land and the sky.' The shift is from human beings to autumn's music. The stanza takes us to the
evening when we observe the "barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day/And touch the stubble plains
with rosy hue." It is not `a maturing sun' of the morning it is the soft-dying day—the time sequence runs
from morning to evening, from early to late autumn, from the maturity of the fruits on trees to the
gathering and reaping of harvest, to the evening when only stubbles are left in the fields—on the
plains. The sounds of non-human life could be heard. The music of autumn ranges from "the wailful
choir of gnats" to the bleatings of "the full-grown lambs"—the music includes 'the sounds of natural life,
beyond man's control and the animals reared by human beings. The robin whistling from a "garden croft"
is something between the wild and the tame. Swallows twittering away indicate the temporary loss of
something beautiful they build their nests in buildings to which they return annually, but now they are
flying away.' If swallows remind us of the pattern of loss and return which govern€ both human and non
human life, the full grown lambs. represent 'the inevitable return of spring and renewal of life.' In the
third stanza the auditary imagery has been used. Commenting on the third stanza Brian Stone says "The
poem lifts from the serenely swelling and sweetening of the insides of fruits, nuts and flowers in the first
stanza, to the human efforts to store the autumnal plentitude made possible by nature in the second
stanza. In the third stanza it must lift again, not only to universalise and consolidate these two experiences,
but to take the reader into the acceptance of autumn's essential farewell, with its suggestion of death. It
must do that by uniting the supernal—in the process of time, in the ineluctable change of sky and earth,
and in the threat of barrenness in the coming winter—with the natural and ph: sical—in the form of the
cropped fields of stubble, the creatures now strong and mature, which were born naked and feeble in the
spring, the insects whose thriving existence is due to the superabundance of autumnal warmth and food
supply, and the birds, some of which like the robins, will face out the coming winter, and others which,
like the swallows will leave for summery places in huge flocks, to return when winter is gone. Keats's
device for this is two fold: he opens out from the local human scene of the second stanza to the natural
perimeters of the English rural world, with its skies, clouds,, winds, hills and rivers; and he does this
largely, but not exclusively, by sound symphonies which complement the visual symphonies of the second
Stanza I.
In the first four lines of the stanza two or more senses have been synthesised. The "rosy" reflection
of sunlit evening clouds (the barred clouds) can be seen on the stubble-plains. Their visual effect is
described as `music' associating it with the first, two lines. To this 'imagined music' is added the music of
mourning gnats, full grown bleating lambs, singing crickets, whistling robins and twittering swallows.
Twitter and whistle-the two onomatopoeic words make the last lines more poignant with "the notion of
departure and possibly death". To Autumn is a. profound lyric.
In To Autumn Keats has added a line to the ten-line of the Spring Odes and made a couplet before
the final line. The poem uses eleven-line regular iambic pentameter rhymes in each stanza. The rhyme
scheme is abab cd ed cce. The poet gives 'a rounded power' to the rhythm of each stanza statement in the
poem, the whole of which is unassailably tranquil. "The first stanza is all direct maturing plentitude, the
second personifies Autumn at work in that plentitude; and the third is an evocation of the air and sky
above the autumnal scene, in which the sounds of birds and insects predominate, making a kind of
sung elegy for the end of the harvest."
The language is simple, more mono-syllablic and Saxon, full of vowels and clusters of consonants, so
one has to go slowly. Beginning with the phrases such as "close bosom friend," "mossed cottage-trees",
with a sweet Kernal to "until they think warmdays," we have 'a meditative slowness of utterance'. The
slowness of utterance is a characteristic of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" also.
The poem appeals to the senses, it is 'made up of the sights, sounds, scents and particular feel of
things which Keats evokes.' 'Alliteration is used effectively. `P' sound in stanza one suggests ripeness to
the core and fullness to bursting, 'f" and 'w' sounds are used for the light wind in the next and 'z' sound
in 'oozing' brings before our eyes the picture of juice of the apple dripping drop by drop slowly and
44
leisurely into the vessel from the cider-press. Keats deliberately ends a line with a little pause to stress
the opening of the next line.
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook.
The-pause after 'keep' and the emphasis on "steady" make us feel the efforts of the gleaner to
balance herself and to save herself and her bundle from toppling into the water. The rise and fall of the
cloud of gnats synchronise with the rise and fall of the verse at the end of one line and beginning of
the next.
Among the river swallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies.
The poem uses concrete images and personification has been used with great subtlety creating an
intimate relationship between the season and the poet. Autumn, being a close bosom friend of the
conspiring sun, loads, blesses, bends, fills, plumps etc. It is a benevolent deity blessing the earth with
plentitude. In the next stanza Autumn appears as human beings engaged in various activities. The poet
addresses Autumn in the third stanza "think not" of "the songs of springs "for" thou hast thou music
too". But by the time we reach the end of the poem the Autumn flies away like the frittering swallows.
"The nostalgic effect is created with the description of the 'soft dying day' and the end of the season.
But the note of hope for the renewal is also implicit for the swallows will return in due course of
time, the revolution of the seasons is a continuing process." (K.O.)
7.03 Study Notes
Most critics consider "Ode to Autumn"as the most perfect of Keats' Odes. The year 1819, when Keats
wrote his best poetry and all his great Odes, was a time of great stfess and strain and sorrows and suffering
for him. In August of the same year, he moved to Winchester from London in quest of some .peace and calm
and found it in reading and writing and even more in the beauty of Nature which was spread all around him.
It was his custom to have long walks around the fields and meadows after a morning's intense compo.sition and
reading and writing. He describes the clean, unbroken autumn weather and the beautiful shapes and scenes of
nature he found in his walks, in a letter to his friend Reynolds:
"How beautiful the season is now. How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it...I never liked the
stubble fields so much as now. Aye, better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow a stubblefield looks
warm in the same way as some pictures are warm...this struck me so much in my Sunday walk that I
composed upon it.
The Ode to Autumn was the poem that he had composed, which is much lovelier an echo of his own
above description of fine weather and the beauty of the Autumn morning. It was the last great Ode and the last
great poem that he was ever to write.
Stanza I
Autumn in northern climates is the harvest season. Instead of the clear days of spring, autumn days are
often misty. The opening line characterises the season. The line is an address to Autumn, here thought of as a
person. Note the alliteration in L.1, the 'm' in mists' and mellow' links the soft, misty character of Autumn skies
with the soft, juicy sweetness of ripe, autumn fruit: the 'n' in the 'season' and 'fruitfulness' links the two words.
Lines 2-9 express the idea that the season i.e. Autumn and the warm sun help each other to produce
flowers and fruits in abundance.
bosom-friend: intimate friend.
Maturing: ripening, bringing to fruition or full growth.
conspiring: joining together.in a plot, used here playfully. The plot here is to bring about a profusion of
fruit and flower.
45
bless: the word indicates the beneficent quality of the sun and the season to endow vines and trees with
fruit and plants and creepers with flower.
vine: the creeper that bears grapes.
thatch-eaves: over-hanging edges of the thatched roofs.
core: centre, inner-most part, the fruit is fully ripe, not half fipe.
L.7. Note the careful selection of the words, 'swell' to describe the round shape of the gourd and 'plump'
to suggest the softness and juiciness of the hazel nut.
plump: used here as a verb meaning to fatten.
hazel: hazel nuts.
kernal: Soft, edible part inside the hard shell of hazel-nut.
later-flowers: summer, the season of flowers is over, but early Autumn is still warm enough for
flowers to bloom.
clammy: sticky.
The first stanza gives a detailed description of the scene that Keats had seen in his walk. It describes
Autumn country-side. The next stanza depicts the activities during this season.
Stanza II
Here the activities characteristic of the country side in Autumn are described. Autumn has been
personified Autumn is depicted both as a man and a woman going through the various processes
of harvesting that a typical peasant would be carrying out.
careless: relaxed, free from cares.
L.15. Autumn is sitting at ease in her granary.
winnowing: it is the process by which grain is separated from the chaff after threshing, that loosens
the chaff from the grain.
soft-lifted: moved gently by the breeze.
LL 16-17. Autumn is seen in another aspect. Autumn is out in the field where the corn is being
cut.
half-reaped: half cut (corn) with a sickle.
drows'd: put to sleep. Poppies are often found growing with the wheat. Autumn half-way through
reaping is over-come with the fragrance of the poppy flowers, and falls asleep on the furrow. Opium is
extracted from the poppy flowers—here the fragrance of the poppies is shown having a sleep
producing effect.
Furrow: long, deep cut in the ground made by a plough.
hook: sickle for cutting the corn.
swath: ridge of grass,.barley wheat etc. lying after being cut.
L-18. Half the corn is cut on the furrow, the rest with which the poppy flowers are twined are
spared for the moment while Autumn has fallen asleep.
LL.19-20. Another activity of harvesting is described here. Autumn has been busy gleaning.
Gleaning is the gathering of the ears of corn that are left behind after reaping is complete. Peasant
women gather for their own use what the reapers have left behind. Autumn, seen as the gleaner here
carefully walks with the bundle of corn on her head, over the stepping stones or a narrow bridge across
the little stream, on her way home. A lovely picture of a woman balancing a load on her head.
46
L.21-22. Here the poet takes us where the ripe apples that have been gathered are being
squeezed in a machine to make cider (drink made from apples) Autumn is seen patiently standing and
waiting, watching the last drops to fall from the cider-press (machine for pressing juice from apples)
into the vats where they are collected.
L.22 Note the slow, lingering movement of the line: 'Thou watchest, the last oozings hours by
hours.' There are six long sounds here and only four short. You really get an idea of the long and patient
waiting of the Autumn standing by the ciderpress, watching the last drops of the juice slowly falling
one by one.
Stanza III
This stanza, like the second, opens with a question. But unlike the question opening the second
stanza, which is expressive of happy eagerness, here the question is suggestive of sadness. The poet
knows that the songs of spring are no more to be heard. Spring is a symbol of new birth. Now the year
is old, nearing its end. The cycle of birth (spring) growth (summer) ripening (Autumn) is complete.
The last ear of corn and the last fruit are gathered. The dark and cold days of winter are drawing near
when nothing grows, no flowers bloom and no birds sing.
L.24 But the poet suppresses these questions and apprehensions. He cannot allow himself to think
beyond his bourn. Perhaps like Shelley he consoles himself with the thought that:
`If winter comes, can spring be far behind',
And after winter there is the spring again, and the cycle starts again. What is real now is the
present moment which he means to live in and enjoy without looking 'before or after'. For
Autumn too has its own 'beauty and music, though different from that of Spring or Summer.
barred clouds: streaky clouds, clouds that gather at sunset in long lines or 'bars' above the west.
Clouds through which the sunrays pass.
bloom: touch with colour, a beautifully suggestive word evoking memories of flowers.
Soft-dying day: long twilight of northern climates is referred to here. The twilight lingers and fades
away slowly, not suddenly as in the tropical regions where the darkness descends as soon as the sun
sets.
the stubble plains: the fully reaped fields left with only the stumps of the wheat plants sticking up
after the harvest. Their yellow and brown colour is made rosy by the touch of the soft rays of the setting
sun, giving • them a beauty and a warmth Keats described in his letter to Reynold.
wailful choir: the mournful orchestra of nature. The music i.e. the sounds of late Autumn are
described in clear and concrete terms. The sounds of the gnats, full-grown lambs, hedge crickets and the
red-breasts and swallows are not joyous but sad and low. Hence wailful choir.
sallows: a kind of low-growing willow tree. The willow is a symbol of mourning and the mournful
sounds of gnats produce the effect of sadness.
Lines 28-29 the sound is carried by the breeze and comes to the ear by fits and starts. Borne aloft:
carried over.
sinking: fading out, becoming inaudible.
bourn: boundary The lambs are bleating in the distance where they are enclosed for the night in
their pens.
hedge crickets: insects like grass-hoppers that chirp in the hedges.
treble: high-pitched sound.
the red breast: Robin red breast, a common bird in England; brown all over except for a red
patch on the breast. It does not migrate.
garden croft: a small, enclosed garden adjoining a house.
47
Line 33. The line indicates that this is the end of Autumn. The approach of winter is clearly shown
by the swallows getting ready to migrate to the warmer southern climates for the winter.
Note again the careful choice of words. The words 'wailful', 'mourn' denote the exact sounds made
by gnats and hedge-crickets. The words 'bleat', `treble"whistle, `twitter',_all describe thin sounds
and these are the sounds of late Autumn so different from the clamorous birds in spring and the rich
sounds heard in summer, whet the nightingale and the lark sing and the bees murmur and other happy
animal noises fill the English country side.
7.04. Detailed Study of the Poem
Stanza I
Autumn is a season of mists and fogs. The opening stanza emphasises "mellow fruitfullness". It is
early Autumn and mists hang in the air and fruits and vegetables and corn are ripened and matured.
Here, the poet sees Autumn not as an inanimate, abstract thing but as a person endowed with human
qualities.
Autumn is an intimate friend of the Sun that brings mellowness and maturity to everything. It
appears as if Autumn and the Sun have entered into a conspiracy and are considering ways and means
to load and bless the vine and moss covered trees with fruits in such abundance that their branches may
bend to the ground with their weight. They are plotting together to ripen the fruits fully and to fatten the
gourd and fill the hazel shell with sweet kernal at the centre. They plan that more and more buds may
bloom and blossom into flowers so that the bees may get an illusion that summer will never come to an
end and flowers will never cease to bloom hercw' as it is, their honey combs are already overflowing
with the honey they had collected during the summer. There is a touch of mischief in the mutual
conspiracy of Autumn and the Sun because they are causing a little worry to the tiny creatures by
their too much benevolence.
Note that we find picturesque descriptions throughout the stanza. We can see with little effort the
vine passing round the house-wall and bearing clusters of ripe grapes, the apple trees in the cottage
garden their stems green with emerald moss and their boughs bending beneath their abundant
burden; the swollen gourd, the hazel nut, the all ripe fruits and even honey combs.
Stanza II
In the second stanza, the scene changes completely. Autumn is again personified here. The poet
shows Autumn in different attractive forms and attitudes and aspects. The familier aspects and
activities of the season are presented in a series of pictures. Picture after picture follows as if on a
cinema screen and we see Autumn as a youthful, lovely, peasent man/woman engaged in various
activities of the harvesting time.
Autumn is frequently seen as sitting on the floor of her granary in a carefree and relaxed mood
as if resting after a hard day's work. We can almost see a look of satisfaction on her face as she
looks at her fully stored granary and there is a charm in her careless manner. The soft breeze that
helps in winnowing the corn, is playing with her golden hair, moving them this way and that way
caressingly. Here the chaff and the straw flying in the air is beautifully compared to the golden hair
of Autumn.
The scene changes and we find Autumn (as a reaper) fast asleep intoxicated by the balmy
perfume of the poppy flowers which are growing in the field intertwining their tender stems with
those of the wheat plants. The corn of the furrow on which he is" lying asleep like a sweet, innocent
child is only half cut by him and his sickle is lying beside him, waiting for the master to wake up
and cut the remaining swath of the grain.
Again, we see Autumn in the form of a gleaner. She has gathered the ears of corn left by the
reapers and has made a bundle of them which she has put on her head. She is crossing a stream on
her way home, slowly and carefully stepping from one stone to the other which are lying in the
shallow stream, trying to balance the heavy load on her head. On another occasion Autumn might
48
also be seen standing by a cider-press, watching patiently, hour by hour, the last drops of the apple
juice, falling drop by drop into the vessel.
Thus we observe, whereas the first stanza describes the beauty of Autumn, the second stanza
displays Autumn itself. The familier figures of the season are passed before us in a series of
pictures. The season has been first personified as a harvester during the winnowing. Next the season
has been personified as a tired reaper. This is very realistic. We seem to see the slumbering labourer
fallen asleep in the midst of his toil. Then the season has been represented as a gleaner going home in
the evening carrying a sheaf of corn on her head. Lastly, the season has been represented as a
cider-maker.
Stanza III
In the midst of these lovely scenes and pictures of Autumn, the poet suddenly misses the songs
of the spring. But the spring with its songs has long passed away. There is a pang of regret. Is there a
fear that Autumn with its golden joys and rosy warmth will vanish too? But then why look before
and after and pine for what is not or will not be. The Autumn with all its charms is there at the
moment. It is better to embrace this moment and drink its joy to the last drop. The Autumn has its
own music. As the streaks of the clouds in the west are touched by the golden beauty of the setting
sun and they impart a glow to the softly dying day and bathe the stubble-plains in a rosy light, the
band of the little musicians of Nature begin their sad but sweet music. There is the mournful sound
of the gnats among the willows on the river bank which is carried far and high by the breeze when it
rises and sinks low when it stops blowing. There is the sound of the bleating of the lambs coming
from the distant hills where they are enclosed in their pens for the night. The hedge crickets are
singing and the soft sharp whistling of the robin red-breast rises from a garden adjoining a house.
There are swallows which are filling the air with the sound of their twittering and are gathering in
the sky to say good-bye to Autumn and to England, to migrate to some far-off country for the
coming winter.
Thus we see in the third stanza, the music of Autumn is introduced in a scene of sun set glory.
The little birds, the small insects, the gurgling brook, the whistling winds, the gentle breeze, the bleating
lambs, in short small and big things of Nature are instruments of music and contribute their share in
Autumn also. So there is no need to regret about the spring with its music that is gone.
7.05 An Analysis of the Poem
To Autumn, the last of the great Odes of Keats, is one of the most nearly perfect poems in
English. "In it now his disciplined powers of observation, imagination and craftsmanship combine to
immortalise in enduring beauty a mood of the poet as he responded to the beauties of an Autumn
day". Ode To a Nightingale is less `perfect' though a greater poem. In it he cries out against the
impermanence of beauty and happiness whereas in 'To Autumn' he accepts this passing of beauty
and joy and transitoriness of life bravely for the reason that Keats is able to see it as part of a
larger and richer permanence. This greater permanence is the continuity of life itself. The rotation
of the seasons offers this symbol of continuity that is immediately satisfying.
The poem appears to be a superb specimen of analysis. In the three stanzas Keats describes
three stages of the season. Early, mid and late Autumn is described with a wealth of details and with
rich imagery. In the first stanza he presents before us a wealth of details of the objects seen in Autumn
with great clarity and concreteness. Here is earth's glowing abundance of fruits which are in the
process of ripeness and fruition.
The rich imagery in the poem which is luxuriantly descriptive presents the moss covered apple
trees with their branches bending under the weight of fruit, the vines hanging tensely under the heavy
weight of grapes. Note that the words are chosen with great care to convey the exact quality of the
objects described. For example, if `swell and plump' give the outward signs of fatness and
sweetness, sweet kernal vividly makes us feel the lusciousness within. In other words one could
almost see and touch the juicy, plump and soft fruit. Again the loaded abundance is suggested by the
49
heavy oozing of the honey in the last line 'over brimmed clammy cells'. There is so much oozing
sweetness here that the honey-combs are insufficient to hold it all.
The second stanza is the greatest example of personification in English poetry. The element of
personification that we find in the second stanza is really an influence of Hellenism. Keats's
'Hellenism' consists in respect for form and classical grace, simplicity and directness of expression
and passion for beauty. All these qualities are perceptible in the poem. Autumn is seen assuming the
shape of people in various scenes typical of the season—winnowing, reaping, gleaning, cider-making.
With that intimacy and coneretness of detail Keats presents Autumn! The last four lines of the 2nd
stanza are fine instances of enactment. Autumn now figures as a gleaner who is seen stepping
across a small stream with a bundle of corn on her head. The very movement of the g leaner can be
visualised in the words, 'keep' and steady'.
The third stanza opens briefly by recalling the past. Despite Keats being under the spell of
the season of ripeness and fulfillment, the consciousness of its transience does not altogether leave
him. There is, in the midst of the joys of Autumn, a sudden pang of regret for the lost beauties
and music of the spring:
"Where are the songs of spring? Ay where are they?"
Yet quietly and firmly Keats dismisses his regrets for the departed spring as merely vain:
"Think not of them, thou hast thy music too—"
So he shall enjoy the present beauty and the joy it gives.
Autumn also has its rich source of music and beauty. The dull, yellow and brown stubble plain
is lighted by the rays of the setting sun, making it beautiful. Then follows a concrete description of the
different sounds of Nature: the gnats mourn in a wailful choir, the lambs bleat, the hedge crickets
sing, the red-breast whistles and the gathering swallows twitter in the skies. Note that Keats
selects words which are highly suggestive e.g. 'the barred clouds', and 'soft -dying day, etc.
All this indicates that Autumn is about to end and winter is fast approaching. But the poet
realises that there is nothing to regret as life goes on; the individual year may be drawing to its end
but there will be a new year to take its place. In other words, by now, Keats has learnt to accept
life as it is—a perpetual process of ripening, decay and death. He perceives that reality in its totality
despite its desagreebles, is beautiful. So with philosophical resignation, Keats contents himself to the
happiness of the moment momentary as is, and the poem ends as Graham Hough puts it "with the quiet
relapse of consciousness into the soft natural loveliness that surroundS it". Douglas Bush says, 'In To
Autumn Keats does- not evade or challenge actuality; he achieves by implication, 'the top of
sovereignty', the will to neither strive nor cry, the power to see and accept life as it is, a perpetual
process of ripening, decay and death". The Odes of Keats are in fact supreme examples of Negative
.capability, "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable
reaching after fact and reason".
Your will notice that Keats looks at nature in a way different from Wordsworth. Wordworth (e.g. in
the "Lines written above Tintern Abbey") is more interested in recording how the poet feels about
Nature, what thoughts and emotions are roused in his mind by the beauty of Nature. Wordworth is more
subjective. Keats in To Autumn' presents the scene and its objects as he sees them, with great clarity
and vividness. Unlike in Wordsworth, in Keats, all the five senses are important and all five operate
everywhere in and across his poetry. This gives rise to that concreteness of imagery l which is
associated with Keat's works. (Mary Samuel)
50
8. Critical Views on "To Autumn"
“To Autumn"—The poem opens with an apostrophe to the season, and with a description of
natural objects at their richest and ripest stage.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun,
…………………………………………….
For summer her o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.
(Quote* stanza 1)
The details about the fruit the flowers and the bees constitute a lush and colourful picture of autumn
and the effect of the "maturing sun." In the final lines of the first stanza, however, slight implications about
the passage of time begin to operate. The flowers are called "later", the bees are assumed to think that
"warm days will never cease and there is a reference to the summer which has already past.
In the second stanza, an imaginative element enters the description, and we get a
personification of the season in several appropriate postures and settings.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
………………………………………………
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by home".
(Quote* stanza 2)
As this stanza proceeds, the implication of the descriptive details become increasingly strong. For
example, autumn is now seen, not as setting the flowers to budding, but as already bringing some of them to an
end, although it "Spares the next swath". Autumn has become a "gleaner". The whole stanza presents the
paradoxical qualities of autumn, its aspects both of lingering and passing. This is specially true of the final
image, Autumn is the season of dying as well as of fulfilling. Hence it is with "patient look"•that she (or
he?) watches "the last oozings hours by hours". Oozing, or a steady dripping, is, of course, not
unfamiliar as a symbol of the passage of time.
It is in the last stanza that the theme appears most conspicuously.
"Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
………………………………………………………..
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies"
(Quote stanza 3)
The opening question implies that the season of youth and rebirth, with its beauties of sight and
sound, has passed,and that the season of autumn is passing but autumn, too, while it lasts—"While barred
clouds bloom the soft-dying day"—has its beauties, its music, as Keats's poem demonstrates. The imagery
of the last stanza contrasts significantly with that of the first, and the final development of the poem adds
meaning to its earlier portions. The slight implications are confirmed. We may recall that "maturing"
means aging and ending as well as ripening. The earlier imagery is, of course, that of ripeness. But the
final imagery is more truly autumnal. The first words used to describe the music of autumn are "wailful"
and "mourn". The opening stanza suggests the height of the day when the sun is strong and the bees, are
gathering:honey from the blooming flower. But in the last stanza, after the passing of "hours and
hours", we have "the soft-dying day," the imagery of sunset and deepening twilight, when the clouds
impart their glow to the day and the plains. The transitive, somewhat rare use of the verb "bloom," with
51
its spring like associations, is perhaps surprising, and certainly appropriate and effective in , suggesting
the tension of the theme in picturing a beauty that is lingering, but only lingering. The conjunction of
"rosy hue" and "stubble-plains" has the same significant incongruity although the image is wholly
convincing and actual in its, reference. While the poem is more descriptive and suggestive than
dramatic, its latent theme of transitoriness and mortality is symbolically dramatised by the passing
course of the day. All these characteristics of the poem are to be found in the final image. "And gathering
swallows twitter in the skies." Here we have the music of autumn. And our attention is directed toward the
darkening skies. Birds habitually gather in flocks toward nightfall, particularly when they are preparing to
fly south at the approach of winter. But they are still gathering. The day, the season are "soft dying"
and are both the reality and the symbol of life as most intensely and poignantly beautiful when viewed
from this melancholy perspective.
This reading of "To Autumn" is obviously slanted in the direction of a theme which is also found in
other Odes. The theme is, of course, only a part of the poem, a kind of dimension, or extension, which
is almost concealed by other features of the poem, particularly by the wealth of concrete descriptive
detai4...in "To Autumn" the season is the subject and the details which describe and thus present the
subject are also the medium by which the theme is explored...In "To Autumn" the theme inheres in the
subject, and is at no point stated in other terms. That is why we could say, in our reading of the poem,
that the subject "is both the reality and the symbol," and to say now that the development of the
subject is, in a respect, the exploration of a theme.
The poem has an obvious structure in so far as it is a coherent description. Its structure, however, is
not simple in the sense of being merely continuous. For example, the course of the day parallels the
development of the poem. And an awareness of the theme gives even greater significance to the
structure, for the theme emerges with increasing clarity and fullness throughout the poem until the
very last line. Because the theme is always in the process of merging without ever shaking off the
medium in which it is developed, the several parts of the poem have a relationship to each other
beyond their progression in a single direction. The gathering swallows return some borrowed
meaning to the soft-dying day with substantial interest, and the whole last stanza negotiates with
the first in a similar relationship.
..."To Autumn" shares a feature of development with the Odes "on the Nightingale" and "the
Grecian Urn". Each of these poems begins with the presentation of realistic circumstances, then
moves into an imagined realm, and ends with a return to the realistic. In "Ode to a Nightingale", the
most, clearly dramatic of the poems, the speaker, hearing the song of the nightirigale, wishes to fade
with it "into the forest dim" and to forget the painful realities of life. This wish is fulfilled in the fourth
stanza—the speaker exclaims. "Already with thee!" As the poem proceeds and while the imagined realm
is maintained, the unpleasant realities come back into view. From the transition that begins with the
desire for "easeful Death" and through the references to "hungry generation" and "the sad heart of
Ruth", the imagined and the real, the beautiful and the melancholy, are held balanced against each other.
Then, on the word "forlorn", the speaker turns away from the imagined, back to the real and his "sole
self'.
In the structural imaginative arc of the poem, ("Ode to A Nightingale") the speaker is returned to
the "drowsy numbness" wherein he is awake to his own mortal lot and no longer awake to the vision of
beauty. Yet he knows that it is the same human melancholy which is in the beauty of the bird's "plaintive
anthem" and in the truth of his renewed depression. His way of stating this knowledge is to ask the
question.
...The lush and realistic description of the first stanza ("To Autumn") is followed by the imagined
picture of the autumn as a person, who, while a lovely part of a lively scene, is also intent upon
destroying it. The personification is dropped in the final stanza, and there is again a realistic description,
still beautiful but no longer lush, and suggesting an approaching bleakness.
The imaginative aspect of structure which the three Odes ("Ode to A Nightingale", "Ode as A
Grecian Urn" and "To Autumn") have in common illustrates opinions which are in accord with the thought
of Keats's times and which he occasionally expressed in his poetry. The romantic poets's pre-occupation
52
with nature is proverbial, and there are a number of studies (e.g. Caldwell's On Keats) relating their work
and thought to the associationist psychology which was current in their times. According to this
psychology, all complex ideas and all products of the imagination were, by the association of
remembered sensations, evolved from sensory experiences. Keats found their doctrine interesting
and important not because it led back to the mechanical functioning of the brain and the nervous
system, but because sensations led to the imagination and finally to myth and poetry, and the
beauty of nature was thus allied with the beauty of art. In the early poem, which begins,"
I stood tip-toe upon a little hill", Keats suggests that the legends of classical mythology were created
by poets responding to the beauties of nature. ...Conspicuous throughout Keats's work, blended and
adjusted according to his own temperament and for hi s own purposes, are these donnees of
his time: a theory of the imagination, the Romantic preoccupation with nature, and the
refreshed literary tradition of classical mythology. These are reflected by the structure of his
most successful poems, and are an element in their inter relatedness.
"To Autumn" is shorter than the other Odes, and simpler on the surface in several respects. The
nightingale sings of summer "in full-throated ease", and the boughs in the flowery tale on the Urn cannot
shed their leaves "nor ever bid the spring adieu". The world in which the longer Odes have their setting
is either young or in its prime, spring or summer. Consequently, in these poems some directness of
statement and a greater complexity are necessary in order to develop the paradoxial theme, in order to
penetrate deeply enough the temple of delight and arrive at the sovran shrine of Melancholy. The Urn's
"happy melodist" plays a song of spring, and the "self-same song" of the nightingale is of summer. One
of these songs has "no tone", and the other is in either "a vision or a waking dream" for the voice of the
"immortal Bird" is "finallysymbolised beyond the "sensual ear". But the music of autumn, the
twittering of the swallows, remain realistic and literal, because the tensions of Keats's' theme
are implicit in the actual conditions of autumn, when beauty and melancholy are merging on the
very surface of reality. Keats's genius was away from statement and toward description, and in
autumn he had the natural symbol for his meanings. It "To Autumn" is shorter than the other Odes and
less complex in its materials, it has the peculiar distinction of great compression achiever in simple
Urns. (An, extract from Leonard Unger's essay: Keats and the Music of Autumn)
(Source: The Man in the Name: Essay on the Experience of Poetry, Minneapolis, 1956)
* Quote—The students may quote the complete stanza.
9. Select Bibliography
1. The Romantic Poets: Graham Hough
2. The College Survey of English Literature: M. Wither Spoon.
3. A Preface to Keats —Cedric Watts.
4. Twentieth Century Views—Keats, A Collection of Critical Essays—edited by Walter Jackson
Bate.
5. John Keats: The Odes edited by A.R. Weekes.
6. Keats: Odes Case book Series—Editor A.E. Dyson.
7. The Romantic Imagination: Maurice Bawra.
8. On the Poetry of Keats: E.C. Pettet.
9. Introduction to Keats: William Walsh.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Keats: H.W. Garrod.
John Keats: W.J. Bate.
Keats: John Barnard
The Poetry of Keats: Brian Stone
53