John Keats

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Ode to a Nightingale

style of the poem This poem is written indisciplined 10-line stanza formwhich resembles the sonnet yetliberates it from the restrictionsof that form. The rhyme patternof each stanza is essentiallyabab cde cde. background his poor health his brother’s death

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Ode to a Nightingale

nightingale

a symbol of eternal joy with a colour of melancholy

theme

Beauty and eternity is infinite, but man is not. The most immortal joy is melancholy. Beauty can't exist for long in the earthly world.

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Ode to a Nightingale

　　 detailed analysis This poem is rich in sensuous imagery and speaks of

the feeling pleasures of life experienced by a poet on the verge of death. The languorous heart-aching happiness is reproduced rather than described. The whole ode reproduces the mixed feelings Keats had over life and death. It best shows Keats's ability to capture the inner being of things and his special skill in using synaesthetic imagery, that is, he uses the taste of wine to explain an impression made by the sound of a song; he can smell “embalm é d darkness” and the “musk-rose, full of dewy wine” is a scent described in terms normally used for the sense of taste, and “the murmurous haunt of flies” is a sound effect suggesting the odours of “summer eves.”

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