Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale ------ conflict between the ideal and the real.
Answer: Ode to a Nightingale is a memorable poem of John Keats which contains a
number of his thoughts. Of these the contrast between the ideal and the real
deserves special attention. To achieve his purpose, the poet has set before us two
areas, of which represents only one idea. There is, for example, the world of the
nightingale which stands for the ideal; there is, again, the human world which
represents the real. The world of the nightingale is marked by joy and happiness,
melody and frankness; It is a place of perfect delight and harmony. In contrast to this
stands the human world attacked alternatively by sorrow and despair, disease and
death, loss of beauty of love. Through a superb delineation of this contrast between
the ideal and the real he has not only raised his poem to a level which satisfies our
hunger for thought but also given a proof of his negative capability’ unaffected alike
by beauty and unloveliness.
We shall first pay our attention to the world of the nightingale which stands for the
concept of the ideal. In the centre of this world lives the nightingale which by a trick
of the imagination and a play of disappointment caused by a feeling of self-
effacement is suddenly transformed into an ‘immortal Bird’, an object of unaging
beauty and undiminished joy. Such a bird was obviously ‘not born for death’. ‘Among
the leaves’ it is immune from what afflicts mankind. Its ‘happy lot’ never allows it to
be trodden down by ‘hungry generations’. Its never-missing joy transforms it into a
‘light-winged Dryad of the trees’ and sitting amidst ‘shadow numberless’ of ‘some
melodious plot of beechen green’ it goes on singing of ‘summer in full-throated ease.’
The nightingale’s presence is felt in an area bathed n soft light, for bright, dazzling
light is reminiscent of harsh reality. It lives in the ‘dim forest’ amidst ‘verdurous
glomms’ and ‘embalmed darkness’ that eanable it to enjoy the best things of nature
in a slow, relaxed manner. From its abode, it can watch the ‘tender night as well as
the ‘Queen Moon’ surrounded by ‘all her starry Fays’. There is slight light here, but
smells that waft in the air are sufficient to detect the presence of the white hawthorn,
the pastoral eglantine, the fast-fading violets, and the coming musk-rose whose cup,
full of ‘dewy wine’ serve as ‘the murmurous haunt of the flies on summer eves’. In
short, the nightingale’s world is a perfect spot of peace, delight and harmony where
one can arrive only with the help of imagination, only with ‘the viewless wings of
Poesy’.
In contrast to the above stands the world of men, the area of harsh reality. It is
marked by sorrow and suffering, disease and death. Here the procession of ‘hungry
generations’ temple down all dear and beautiful objects of the preceding
generations. Here the people in general are subjected to ‘the weariness, the fever,
and the fret’----- the tiredness of the spirit, the restlessness of the body, and the
vexation of the mind.
In this poem, Keats has drowned a very moving picture of the world of reality. Here
‘men sit and hear each other groan’; they suffer silently, having no power to help one
another. Here the old as well as the young fall a prey to deadly diseases. Whereas
the old are afflicted with ‘palsy’ that makes their body shake involuntarily, the young
are attacked by consumption (here the poet certainly thinks of the pathetic death of
his younger brother Tom by the same disease) which first makes them ‘pale’, then
‘spectre thin’, and finally brings about their ultimately death. It is a place so sorrowful
in nature that if one barely tries to think about life, one becomes heavy-hearted and
one’s eyes get downcast in despair and discouragement. It is also a place where a
beautiful cannot ‘keep up her beauty for long just as a young lover cannot keep up
Answer: Ode to a Nightingale is a memorable poem of John Keats which contains a
number of his thoughts. Of these the contrast between the ideal and the real
deserves special attention. To achieve his purpose, the poet has set before us two
areas, of which represents only one idea. There is, for example, the world of the
nightingale which stands for the ideal; there is, again, the human world which
represents the real. The world of the nightingale is marked by joy and happiness,
melody and frankness; It is a place of perfect delight and harmony. In contrast to this
stands the human world attacked alternatively by sorrow and despair, disease and
death, loss of beauty of love. Through a superb delineation of this contrast between
the ideal and the real he has not only raised his poem to a level which satisfies our
hunger for thought but also given a proof of his negative capability’ unaffected alike
by beauty and unloveliness.
We shall first pay our attention to the world of the nightingale which stands for the
concept of the ideal. In the centre of this world lives the nightingale which by a trick
of the imagination and a play of disappointment caused by a feeling of self-
effacement is suddenly transformed into an ‘immortal Bird’, an object of unaging
beauty and undiminished joy. Such a bird was obviously ‘not born for death’. ‘Among
the leaves’ it is immune from what afflicts mankind. Its ‘happy lot’ never allows it to
be trodden down by ‘hungry generations’. Its never-missing joy transforms it into a
‘light-winged Dryad of the trees’ and sitting amidst ‘shadow numberless’ of ‘some
melodious plot of beechen green’ it goes on singing of ‘summer in full-throated ease.’
The nightingale’s presence is felt in an area bathed n soft light, for bright, dazzling
light is reminiscent of harsh reality. It lives in the ‘dim forest’ amidst ‘verdurous
glomms’ and ‘embalmed darkness’ that eanable it to enjoy the best things of nature
in a slow, relaxed manner. From its abode, it can watch the ‘tender night as well as
the ‘Queen Moon’ surrounded by ‘all her starry Fays’. There is slight light here, but
smells that waft in the air are sufficient to detect the presence of the white hawthorn,
the pastoral eglantine, the fast-fading violets, and the coming musk-rose whose cup,
full of ‘dewy wine’ serve as ‘the murmurous haunt of the flies on summer eves’. In
short, the nightingale’s world is a perfect spot of peace, delight and harmony where
one can arrive only with the help of imagination, only with ‘the viewless wings of
Poesy’.
In contrast to the above stands the world of men, the area of harsh reality. It is
marked by sorrow and suffering, disease and death. Here the procession of ‘hungry
generations’ temple down all dear and beautiful objects of the preceding
generations. Here the people in general are subjected to ‘the weariness, the fever,
and the fret’----- the tiredness of the spirit, the restlessness of the body, and the
vexation of the mind.
In this poem, Keats has drowned a very moving picture of the world of reality. Here
‘men sit and hear each other groan’; they suffer silently, having no power to help one
another. Here the old as well as the young fall a prey to deadly diseases. Whereas
the old are afflicted with ‘palsy’ that makes their body shake involuntarily, the young
are attacked by consumption (here the poet certainly thinks of the pathetic death of
his younger brother Tom by the same disease) which first makes them ‘pale’, then
‘spectre thin’, and finally brings about their ultimately death. It is a place so sorrowful
in nature that if one barely tries to think about life, one becomes heavy-hearted and
one’s eyes get downcast in despair and discouragement. It is also a place where a
beautiful cannot ‘keep up her beauty for long just as a young lover cannot keep up
