Ode to a Nightingale free essay sample

In the poem Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats, the poem’s preoccupations and qualities evoke a Romantic sentimental recollection for the past and refer to it several times. Framed through dynamic poetic techniques and powerful visual imagery, Keats conveys universal concerns and values of immortality of art and the mortality of humans through the compilation of the themes of mortality, nature and transience. â€Å"Disabled† by the modernist poet, Wilfred Owen projects numerous sensual metaphors to evoke emotional responses of traumatic war experiences. Disabled† has transcended barriers of time to pursue concerns and values through the compilation of themes and emotions of unseen scars, human mortality, and religion. The preoccupations and qualities of these poems that represent the two poetic movements are the themes, the use of tone, the mood and atmosphere, the concerns and values and the structure. In â€Å"Ode to a Nightingale† when the persona hears the bird’s song, it causes him to ruminate on the concerns and values of the immortality of art and the mortality of humans, which represents the Romantic Movement. At the beginning of the poem he desires for life to stay rich with green color and â€Å"Tasting of Flora†. This shows his growing hope that perhaps he will not meeting death so soon yet toward the end of the poem he gives up by falling in love with death. Through his acceptance of death, Keats demonstrates pessimism due to his physical and emotional pain. This pain that he feels comes from seeing his brother in the hands of death and also because he knows he will too face the same fate as his brother. There is jealousy toward the nightingale because it is immortal and Keats is not able to attain that immortality. The bird lives on through its singing because the song will always be the same and will never be forgotten by the people who hear it. This is contrasting to the idea that once a human being dies there is little or no remembrance due to the fact that people change and move on with their lives. Keats wants to be the bird because he wants to remembered and wants to be immortal. By showing his resignation and acceptance of reality, Keats gains sympathy from the reader which helps to pin down a mood in the reader. Keats generates an empathetic and melancholic mood in the poem through the tone. The reader is able to understand why it is that Keats is suffering and is able to grieve for him. This depresses the reader because Keats only peaks of death and how it will consume him. His brothers death is only a look at what is to become of him in the future. At this point the reader becomes emotionally attached to the piece because they know that he will die in a harsh manner as did his brother. Therefor the tone lays out the mood for the reader to grasp through their understanding of the poem. Both the tone and mood affect the setting because they give the reader emotions that surround the actions taking place. In the fifth stanza Keats states that there are, â€Å"Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves†. This represents the heart dying because violets are heart shaped with dark violet color blending with white. The flower has been drying out and is now covered by leaves. This directly parallels with Keats’ brother slowly dying and being physically covered up by his condition. The setting becomes darker in the readers mind because it is known that death is present and it is slowly taking every breath from them. Although this fate is inevitable for all living things, the physical condition that they are dying from contrasts with the nature involved at the beginning of the poem. Since the tone is hopeful at the beginning, the setting is fresh and bright. This goes back to Keats’ desire of immortality, which is felt as he describes the setting, â€Å"in some melodious plot/Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,/Singest of summer in full-throated ease†. This shows how summer is here and that there is happiness for the season because it brings peace to him since there is ease. Conclusively, the setting is affected by both the tone and mood which also affect each other in order to grant the reader a more meaningful understanding of the poem.