All written in May 1819, "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and "Ode on Melancholy" grew out of
a persistent kind of experience which dominated Keats's feelings, attitudes, and thoughts during that time. Each of them is a unique experience, but each of them is also, as it were, a facet of a larger experience. This larger experience is an intense awareness of both the joy and pain, the happiness and the sorrow, of human life. This awareness is feeling and becomes also thought, a kind of brooding as the poet sees them in others and feels them in himself. This awareness is not only feeling; it becomes also thought, a kind of brooding contemplation of the lot of human beings, who must satisfy their desire for happiness in a world where joy and pain are inevitably and inextricably tied together. This union of joy and pain is the fundamental fact of human experience that Keats has observed and accepted as true.
Wright Thomas and Stuart Gerry Brown
In "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn," Keats tries to free himself from the world of change by identifying with the nightingale, representing nature, or the urn, representing art. These odes, as well as "The Ode to Psyche" and the "Ode to Melancholy," present the poet as dreamer; the question in these odes, as well as in "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" and "The Eve of St. Agnes," is how Keats characterizes the dream or vision. Is it a positive experience which enriches the dreamer? or is it a negative experience which has the potential to cut off the dreamer from the real world and destroy him? What happens to the dreamers who do not awaken from the dream or do not awaken soon enough?
a persistent kind of experience which dominated Keats's feelings, attitudes, and thoughts during that time. Each of them is a unique experience, but each of them is also, as it were, a facet of a larger experience. This larger experience is an intense awareness of both the joy and pain, the happiness and the sorrow, of human life. This awareness is feeling and becomes also thought, a kind of brooding as the poet sees them in others and feels them in himself. This awareness is not only feeling; it becomes also thought, a kind of brooding contemplation of the lot of human beings, who must satisfy their desire for happiness in a world where joy and pain are inevitably and inextricably tied together. This union of joy and pain is the fundamental fact of human experience that Keats has observed and accepted as true.
Wright Thomas and Stuart Gerry Brown
In "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn," Keats tries to free himself from the world of change by identifying with the nightingale, representing nature, or the urn, representing art. These odes, as well as "The Ode to Psyche" and the "Ode to Melancholy," present the poet as dreamer; the question in these odes, as well as in "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" and "The Eve of St. Agnes," is how Keats characterizes the dream or vision. Is it a positive experience which enriches the dreamer? or is it a negative experience which has the potential to cut off the dreamer from the real world and destroy him? What happens to the dreamers who do not awaken from the dream or do not awaken soon enough?
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