Ode to a Nightingale詳細(xì)賞析

1、Ode to a Nightingale- John Keats,Questions,Does this poem express only the speakers rapture when he listens to the wonderful songs of the nighingale? What is Keatss view of reality and fantasy as is revealed in the poem? What is his aesthetic aim of the poetry?,Background,Of Keatss six major odes of

2、 1819, Ode to Psyche was probably written first and To Autumn written last. Sometime between these two, he wrote Ode to a Nightingale.The exact date of it is unknown as Keats dated as “ May 1819”. It is based on weather conditions and similarities between images in the poem and those in a letter sen

3、t to Fanny Brawne on May Day.,Background,Keats finished the Ode in just one morning, in Brawnes description reads: In the spring of 1819 a nightingale had built her nest near my house. Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast-table to

4、the grass-plot under a plum-tree, where he sat for two or three hours. When he came into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, I found those scraps, four or five in number, contained his poetic feelings on the

5、 song of the nightingale.,Dominant thoughts in Keats Odes,1, nature is beautiful 2, the realms of art and poetry are wonderful 3, the human society contains inescapable misery,Dominant thoughts in Keats Odes,The artistic aim in his poetry was always to create a beautiful world of imagination as oppo

6、sed to the sordid reality of his day. He sought to express beauty in all of his poems. His poetry is distinguished by sensuousness and the perfection of form. Keats has always been known as a sensuous poet. His ability to appeal to the senses through language is virtually unrivaled.,Stanza I,My hear

7、t aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock1 I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate2 to the drains3 One minute past4, and Lethe5-wards had sunk: Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness - That thou, light winged Dryad6 of the trees, In s

8、ome melodious plot7 Of beechen8 green, and shadows numberless9, Singest of summer in full-throated ease10,1，poison 2，opium 3，quaff,bottom up 4，ago 5，a river in Hades whose waters cause drinkers to forget their past 6，wood nymph,refers to nightingale 7，where nightingale sings 8，beech：山毛櫸樹 9，numberles

9、s shadows： 10，sing freely,Intertwine of the two images,The poet falls into a reverie while listening to an actual nightingale sing. He feels joy and pain, an ambivalent response. Pleasure can be so intense that paradoxically it either numbs him or causes pain.,rapture of the nightingale,forlorn of t

10、he reality,Stanza II,O, for a draught of vintage11! that hath been Coold a long age in the deep-delved12 earth, Tasting of Flora13 and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song14, and sunburnt mirth15! O for a beaker full of the warm South16 Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene17, With beade

11、d bubbles18 winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth, That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade19 away into the forest dim20.,11, wish for wine 12, dig deep 13, flower goddess,fragrance 14, love song 15, collocative clash:the mirth of the sunburnt people 16, metonymy: t

12、he wine in South 17, a fountain on Mount Helicon sacred to the Muses and believed to be a source of poetic inspiration, refers to wine 18, aliteration: bead-like bubbles 19, to disappear gradually 20, rhyme, dim forest,Wanting to escape from the pain of a joy-pain reality, the poet begins to move in

13、to a world of imagination or fantasy. He longs for wine. The description of drinking and of the world associated with wine is idealized, with the images associating the wine with summer, country pleasure and romantic provence.,Stanza III,Fade far away, dissolve21, and quite forget What thou amongst

14、the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan22; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs. Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin23,and dies; Where nut to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed24 despairs; Where Beaut

15、y cannot keep her lustrous25 eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow26.,21、disappear 22、moan due to pain 23、skinny as a ghost 24、not lively,dull eyes 25、 radiant 26、hyperbole: them refers to “her lustrous eyes”, the new love cannot be forever.,The poet uses the word “fade” in the last line o

16、f stanza II and in the first line of this stanza to tie the stanzas together and to move easily into his next thought. His awareness of the real world pulls him back from the imagined world of drink-joy.,Stanza IV,Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted27 by Bacchus28 and his pards29, But

17、on the viewless30 wings of Poesy31, Though the dull brain perplexes32 and retards. Already with thee! tender33 is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Clustered around by all her starry Fays34; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdu

18、rous35 glooms and winding mossy ways.,27, state carriage 28, the Greek god of wine 29, middle English for leopards,refers to the leopard cat that drags the wine god. 30, not perceivable, the soar of poetry is beyond common people 31, poetic fancy 32, to confuse 33, showing affection and love 34, fai

19、ries 35, health and vigor,The poet suddenly cries out Away! away! for I will fly to thee. He turns to fantasy again; he rejects wine in line 2, and in line 3 he announces he is going to use the viewless wings of Poesy to join a fantasy bird. He contrasts this mode of experience (poetry) to the dull

20、brain that perplexes and retards (line 4). In line 5, he succeeds or seems to succeed in joining the bird. The imagined world described in the rest of the stanza is dark.,Stanza V,I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense36 hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed37 darkness, gu

21、ess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month38 endows The grass, the thicket39, and the fruit-tree wild- White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine40; Fast fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-Mays eldest child41, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summ

22、er eves42.,36, fragnant flowers 37, fill with sweet odors 38, the month of the season，refers to May 39, a group of bushes 40, an Old World rose 41, first bloom, musk-rose 42, the repeat sound of “mm” build up the mood for summer,In the fifth stanza is one where flowers bloom and die and seasons come

23、 and go. There he is conscious of his mortality and is drawn by the fantasy of dying to the nightingale s music. Because the poet cannot see in the darkness, he must rely on his other senses. Even in this refuge, death is present.,stanza VI,Darkling43 I listen; and for many a time I have been half i

24、n love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme44, To take into the air my quiet breath45; 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 an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ear

25、s in vain - To thy high requiem46 become a sod47.,46, In the dark。 44, meditated rhyme 45, life 46, a Christian religious ceremony for a dead person 52, ones native land,In Stanza VI, the poet begins to distance himself from the nightingale, which he joined in imagination in stanzas IV and V. Keats

26、yearns to die, a state which he imagines as only joyful, as pain-free, and to merge with the birds song. Keats imagines a death which is an ecstatic conclusion, but then acknowledges that if he were dead the song would go unheard.,stanza VII,Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird53! No hungry g

27、enerations54 tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night eas heard In ancient days by emperor and clown55: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth56, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charmd magic cas

28、ement57, opening on the foam Of perilous58 seas, in faery lands forlorn59.,53, nightingale 54, devouring Time 56, everyone 56, An Israel young from the Bible who picks wheat for a living,the poet pictures her standing by the field missing her hometown. 57, casement refers to the princess waiting for

29、 her prince to resure her 58, full of danger 59, remote and far away, sad and lonely,Why the bird is immortal? The poet contrasts the birds immortality (and continuing joyful song) with the condition of human beings, hungry generations. The bird represents the species, which by continuing generation

30、 after generation does achieve a kind of immortality as a species. Three Images Keats makes three references to the birds singing in the past; the first reference to emperor and clown is general and presumably in a historical past; the other two are specific. one from the Old Testament, the other fr

31、om fairy tales. The past becomes more remote, ending with a non-human past and place (faery lands), in which no human being is present.,The effect of the three images Keats not only expresses his raptures upon hearing the beautiful songs of the nightingale and his desire to go to the ethereal world

32、of beauty together with the bird, but also he shows his deep sympathy for and his keen understanding of human miseries. Keats moves from his awareness of his own mortality in the preceding stanza to the perception of the birds immortality. On a literal level, his perception is wrong; this bird will

33、die. The nightingale not born for death in the sense that, unlike us human beings, it doesnt know its going to die. An implication of this reading is that the bird is integrated into nature or is part of natural processes whereas we are separated from nature. The resulting ability to observe nature

34、gives us the ability to appreciate the beauty of nature, however transitory it-and we-may be. ?,stanza VIII,Forlorn60! the very word is like a bell To toll61 me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive ant

35、hem62 fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was is a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music - Do I wake or sleep63?,60, same with the end of last stanza, means the poet woke up with a start, feeling remote and

36、sad 61, religous image, indicate the anthem 62, coming back to reality, even the songs of nightingale makes the poet feels suffering and sadness 63, While on the wings of imagination, its hard for Keats to tell whether its a dream of not. Likewise in his “Ode to Psyche”, he also asks： “Surely I drea

37、mt to-day, or did I see The winged Psyche with awakened eyes?”,Ambivalence and Conflict,Ode to a Nightingale describes a series of conflicts between reality and the Romantic ideal of uniting with nature. Keats s narrator listens to a bird song, but listening to the song within “Ode to a Nightingale”

38、 is almost painful and similar to death. The narrator seeks to be with the nightingale and abandons his sense of vision in order to embrace the sound in an attempt to share in the darkness with the bird. As the poem ends, the trance caused by the nightingale is broken and the narrator is left wondering if it was a real vision or just a dream.,The bird has ceased to be a symbol and is again the actual bird the poet heard in stanza I. The poet, like the nightingale, ha