John Keats Essay

In John Keats â€Å"Ode to a Nightingale,† answer the following: Identify some Romantic quality about this poem. Explicate. This may require that you provide an example from the work. I feel that there is a â€Å"romantic quality† to Stanza 2. This stanza goes: 2. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt Mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hyppocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink; and leave the world unseen. And with thee fade away into the forest dim: (Poetical, 2005) To me, it seems that the poet is now moving into a world of fantasy, a state the vintage can help bring him into, a pleasurable state of Mirth. He wants to join the nightingale and he uses vintage to take him there. In stanza 2, the reader begins to see and feel the images of â€Å"the country green, Dance, and Provencal song†¦Ã¢â‚¬  It all can have a romantic, fantasy quality to it. All of the visual images along with sunburnt Mirth combines to bring the poet and the reader into what could be thought of as a romantic state of drunkenness. In John Keats â€Å"Eve of St. Agnes,† answer the following: 1. Who is the Beadsman, and what part does he play in the story? It is the Beadsman’s penance to tell Madeline the superstition of St. Agnes Eve. The Beadsman is alone and cold in the chapel praying for the Baron and his friends who are partying. In these days Beadsman were paid to pray for their employer. This brings irony to the poem in that one might think The Beadsman needs the prayers or should be praying for himself. The Beadsman rejects life’s joys. The Beadsman dies this very evening as relayed in the last two lines of the poem (Stanza 42). It could also be noted the Beadsman introduces the religious imagery into the poem when he enters and ends the religious imagery when his part is over. At the beginning of the poem the Beadsman knows his deathbell has rung and indeed it is confirmed by the end of the poem. 2. Why does Angela die? Both Angela and the Beadsman died quietly of old age after witnessing the lovers fleeing into the storm. They played their part and â€Å"exited† the poem. 3. Study the last stanza: do the lovers live happily ever after? What is Keats` point? We don’t really know—it is ambiguous. It states, â€Å"These lovers fled away into the storm† (Stanza 42). I feel that because Keats believed in negative capability or that people have the ability to accept that not everything has to be resolved, he was just allowing the reader to decide rather than writing a trite, obvious ending. It could have also been that Keats didn’t want to end the dream or it to be clearly distinguishable the idea of this being a dream or reality. 4. Do the characters succeed in practicing negative capability? Yes, I feel the characters did succeed in practicing negative capability in that not everything in the poem was resolved for the characters or for the readers. Some of those questions there were no rational explanations for included: was Madeline raped? Why doesn’t Angela tell Madeline that Porphyro was hiding in her closet? Did Madeline and Porphyro die in the storm or live happily ever after? What part of this poem was a dream and what part of it was reality?  Reference (2005). The poetical works of John Keats. Retrieved May 17, 2007, from Great Books Online Web site: http://www. bartleby. com/126/40. html.