Poetry Response #7

Victoria Anderson

Mrs. Jernigan

English IV AP

8 March 2011

Poetry Response #7

“Ode to a Nightingale” personifies the sweet melody of the male Nightingale bird. In an attempt to find the perfect counter part, this animal puts itself on the line in a sacrificial manner in order to woe a future lover. Determined to find his missing piece, or in this case love, the narrator of Keat’s Ode utilizes the freeing ora of flora and fauna in order to escape from the worldly bounds of heart ache. These aches come from the staining taste of the Nightingale’s song. Once heard, the “beaker full of the warm South!” encourages the protagonist to follow the song and “with thee fade away into the forrest dim.” 

Through loosing reality in the song, justice creeps itself between the wavering line of delusion and actuality. The fourth stanza clearly communicates this fact with line thirty-four, “Though the dull brain perplexes and retards.” In fact, so lost in translation, confusion between the two persist into the outlook of this mind. Thus, the meaning of life comes into hand as the music ends, “do I wake or sleep?” What is real?