Examine the romantic
qualities in Keats’ poetry with reference to Ode to a Nightingale?
Keats is the most romantic of all
the poets. His romanticism lies in suggesting the thrill of beauty through
sensuous pictures and expressions. His Ode
to a Nightingale shows his romantic aspiration, his sensnous
appreciation of beauty and the pictorial quality of his poetic art. The
principle romantic qualities that we find in Ode to a Nightingale are escapism, love of beauty,
sensuousness, lyricism, subjectivity, imaginative faculty, love of nature, note
of melancholy which are as follows:-
Escapism:-
Keats is the greatest escapist of
the entire romantic poet. He always seeks to escape into the world of eternal
joy and beauty. In his poems Ode to a Nightingale
he seeks to escape into the world of the nightingale from the real world of
impermanence and suffering. Thus, the poem Ode
to a Nightingale is escapist poems, one of the greatest romantic
qualities of Keats’ poetry.
Love of beauty:-
The romantic poets had a love of
beauty and it was their mission in life to create beauty of all forms and kinds
in their poetry. In this respect Keats was the greatest romantic, for his
poetry was built on the foundation of beauty. Every line in his poetry carries its
noble freight of beauty. For Keats, “A
thing of beauty is a joy forever.” The subject of the poem Ode to a
Nightingale is not the nightingale but the inspiration towards a life of
beauty. It is the voice of eternity that transcends the bounds of space and
time. Keats listens and enjoys with all the senses the song of the bird and thinks
of the bird’s immortality:
“Thou wast not born for death, Immortal Bird!
No hungry generation tread three down.”
Imaginative faculty:-
The romantic poets were endowed with keen imaginative faculty and in Keats the power of imagination was always at its height. In Ode to a Nightingale the poet enjoys the richest and fullest imaginative experience.
