As with all Keats's odes, the "Ode To A Nightingale" explores the relationship between a number of antitheses: art and life; the immanent and the transcendent; and the permanent and the mutable. Keats has chosen to use the nightingale, a well-worn symbol of death, to illustrate the point. In doing so, Keats lays bare the ambiguity of the Romantic attitude towards nature, one that both acknowledges its changeability while at the same time investing...
As with all Keats's odes, the "Ode To A Nightingale" explores the relationship between a number of antitheses: art and life; the immanent and the transcendent; and the permanent and the mutable. Keats has chosen to use the nightingale, a well-worn symbol of death, to illustrate the point. In doing so, Keats lays bare the ambiguity of the Romantic attitude towards nature, one that both acknowledges its changeability while at the same time investing it with a sublime force which has a life all its own.
The nightingale's song embodies this. It is sweetly beautiful, so much so that it transcends the world of nature to which both we and the bird belong. When the nightingale is dead and gone, its song like all art will live on in the hearts and minds of successive generations.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
But the nightingale is not immortal; like us and everything else in nature it must one day perish. Yet, ever the arch-Romantic, Keats invests nature with a power beyond anything mere mortals can ever possibly conceive. The nightingale's song has been there throughout history, delighting both emperor and clown alike. And there is no reason for us not to hope that as the world turns, the music will endure.
As Keats sinks deeper into reverie, he is lifted out of himself and his immediate surroundings to partake of the sublime music of the nightingale's song. But he knows that he cannot do so for long. The harshness of reality must soon intrude.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Keats comes to his senses, reluctantly realizing that his languid vision was precisely that. But there is enough ambiguity here to sustain the tension between the permanent and the immutable. What is real and what is ideal have yet to be conclusively determined.
In his own sublime lyrics, Keats desires to achieve the lasting posterity of the nightingale. He too yearns for his song to soar high above the here and now of the temporal world and attain immortality. "Ode To A Nightingale" perfectly illuminates the ancient saying Ars longa vita brevis. Art endures but life is short.
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