Poetry Response- Ode

Callie Huseman
Jernigan
English 4 AP
8 March 2011
Ode to a Nightingale
John Keats uses the poetic form of an Ode in order to convey his feeling on life. In his poem, Ode to A Nightingale, he uses the nightingale as a symbol of everlasting life, in order to create a theme of human mortality.
The poem begins by telling the story of a man talking to a nightingale. He hears the bird’s song, and responds to it. He says that he wishes to fade away, as if the problems and struggles that he has faced in life have been too much for him to bear. In the second stanza, he writes
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
This shows his dissatisfaction with life, as well as his idea that the nightingale is free from these experiences that have troubled him. He knows that the nightingale’s life has not been plagued with the struggles his has and so he is envious of the nightingale.
The symbol of the nightingale is most prominent in the seventh stanza. Keats writes “Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!” This line summarizes his idea that the bird is not mortal. He clears up this idea by later stating that it is the bird’s song, not the bird itself, that will last forever.
The symbol of the nightingale in Keat’s Ode to a Nightingale is the embodiment of the everlasting life and spirit. Keat’s everlasting spirit is found in his poetry, as said in stanza four.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy