SAMPLE ANALYSIS OF AN EXCERPT FROM “Ode to a Nightingale”

QUESTION ONE

Contextualize the following excerpt, taken from a famous “Ode” and point
out how it displays some typical themes of the poet.
(…) To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
VI While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
Darkling I listen; and for many a time In such an ecstasy!
I have been half in love with easeful Death, Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain---
Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To thy high requiem become a sod
To take into the air my quiet breath; (…)
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

STEP 1
The first task is to contextualize the lines: this time it won’t be difficult to state that this is the 6th
stanza of “Ode to a Nightingale”. Then we may add a few (just a few!) details, mentioning where
and why the author wrote it, if that is consistent with the rest of the question.
So we may start our commentary with phrases or expressions such as:

”The lines quoted are taken/comes from ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, a poem Keats wrote in 1819, in
Hampstead, London, inspired by a nightingale that used to sing from on a tree near his house.

STEP 2"
Then we’ll deal with the second part of our question, and we must state immediately -words are
counted and precious- what the typical themes of Keats are:
• Death
• Fame
• Sorrow
• Nature

So we may continue our analysis, by declaring that

Keats deals with/talks about/displays/insists on some of his typical Romantic themes: death, fame,
sorrow, nature.

We will then have to underline or highlight, (we may use different colours or different underlining
lines) the words or lines that show such themes and, as we underline the words or sentences that
treat such themes, we write down, some quick rough notes, which we will refine in STEP 3.

(…)
VI
Darkling I listen; and for many a time Darkling I listen: (synaesthesia) the poet sets out to
overhear, to spy on, to eavesdrop the nightingale’s song
aware that the bird’s life is much more worth living that
his own one; he -Keats- seems more a spectator of the
bird’s life than eager and waiting for a life alike, which
he has long stopped believing he would ever be allow to
have
and for many a time
 I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
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 ears in vain---
To thy high requiem become a sod
(…)
STEP 3
And now can we assemble the notes that our extensive/deep reading and our previous knowledge
of Keats and his Odes has provided us with.
So we may start like this:
I have been half in love with easeful Death:
The poet declares that he has been thinking, with great
pleasure, about dying many times and he even gives his
reason for that: Death is easeful, it will bring him ease,
rest from sorrow and pain.
mused rhyme: Keats avows he even has written verses
on him, “Death”, and named it/him with soft, sweet
names
To take into the air my quiet breath: Keats admits
asking/having asked “easeful death” ‘to take into the air
‘his’ breath’, which is –away from a tragic death- a way
to get again reunited with nature, in this soft, calm,
smooth, long desired final communion with mother
nature.
Now more than ever seems it rich to die:
Keats insists on his idea, on his view of death: this one
is the perfect night, it will be even “rich to die”, most
probably because you die ruptured by the melodious
song of the bird and totally relieved from your endless
pain…
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,”
… as it is confirmed in this following line, where death
is but “cease … pain”.
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
From this point onwards the mood of the poet seems to
change. There’s some hue of sadness in that juxtaposing
the desire for death of the poet with the easy, relentless
singing of the bird, whose displaying his soul is no less
than an ecstasy: Ecstasy, Fame. And melancholy shows
up, melancholy (and envy?) for the bird’s joyful life,
who can even pour forth, then to everybody and
anybody, his soul, and that will simply produce an
ecstasy, plainly, effortlessly.
wouldst thou sing,
the contrast is further reinforced in this line, where the
bird would be still -not ‘yet’- singing, regardless of the
poet’s death, who would even be denied the pleasure of
listening to the song of the Nightingale, once “a sod”,
but the high, glorious requiem of the bird wouldn’t end,
just as Nature and Life goes on, after one’s death, and
nothing remains, but Fame, which is what Keats yearns
for, as we know from he stanzas precede and those that
follow this one.