Escape for Keats

There can be no question that life presents many disagreeable scenarios. Be it the loss of a friend, a failure to succeed, a dishonor upon the family, the need to escape from despair into bliss can be achieved by a wide variety of choices and decisions. In his famous and remarkable work "Ode to a Nightingale", John Keats offers such forms of fleeing from anguish into pleasure for a narrator dissatisfied with his lot in life.

Written to a singing bird in the trees, Keats's poem explores a variety of methods for a man to escape from a life with which he is discontented. Beginning his poem with "My heart aches" (Line 1), Keats presents his narrator as unhappy from the commencement. Wishing to simply forget his life and be one with the carefree bird who sings his immortal song, the narrator explores various ways in which he might succeed in leaving his troubled mind behind throughout the work.

The first scenario that the narrator explores is escape through imbibing alcohol. He longs for a "draught of vintage!" (Line 11) so "That [he] might drink and leave the world unseen,/And with thee fade away into the forest dim" (Lines 19-20). Dissatisfied with this choice and remaining jealous of the bird who "hast never known/The weariness, the fever, and the fret" (Lines 22-23) that he has, the narrator instead turns to the beauty and timelessness of poetry. He hails its "viewless wings" (32), but his sight continues to fail him as the night grows on and still his mind is filled with despair.

The most powerful form of escape for this narrator lies in flight forever from this world through death. The narrator proclaims that "for many a time/[He] has been half in love with easeful Death" (Lines 52-52) and that "Now more than ever seems it rich to die" (Line 55). It seems that for this man, only through death will his soul be able to discover peace, away from the pain and suffering that torments his days. He even exalts dying as taking him away with "no pain" (Line 56).

Interestingly enough, the narrator, though he hails these forms of escape while remaining envious of the bird who is able to eschew suffering, never takes action with any of them. He fashions his escape through intoxication, death, poetry and dreaming, but never does he drink, commit suicide or escape his reality. His thoughts stray to these forms, but he takes no concrete action other than escape through his imagination.

Keats explores psychology as well as the beauty and tenacity of language in this poem. This is a remarkably human story that finds its purpose in that escape from this world is only too hard to achieve and the forlorn fancies of pursuing contentment are nearly impossible to come by.

Wordsworth's Power of Nature

Nature's power and beauty is difficult to refute. Natural splendor in all of its forms is both pleasing to the eyes and stimulating to the soul. It was common for the Romantic poet to incorporate Nature as a theme in his poems for these and for other reasons. Nature has a transforming power and, for Wordsworth, that power may offer pleasure both in the present sight as well as the recalled memory.

In his poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", Wordsworth's narrator floats above a beautiful and vast expanse of daffodils. So infinite is the view, that the speaker claims that it is "Continuous as the stars that shine/And twinkle on the milky way" (Lines 7-8). So powerful is the image of these marvelous flora, that even the waves of the bay can't outdo their "sprightly dance" (Line 12). 

While the speaker's appreciation is evident due to the manner in which he describes the view he sees, it is not until he reflects upon the experience that he truly realizes the effect of what he saw.He says, "I gazed--and gazed--but little thought/What wealth the show to me had brought" (Lines 17-18). Here, though he claims that the experience did not bring him much to note while seeing it, he seems to know that upon reflection and consideration, the dancing daffodils will haunt his memory forever. After saying that while lounging, thinking deeply or thinking of nothing at all, the daffodils "flash upon that inward eye" (Line 21). Wordsworth ends the poem with the couplet "And then my heart with pleasure fills/And dances with the daffodils" (Lines 23-24).

Nature's power is one so great as to have an effect on human mood and emotion. The view that the expanse of daffodils afforded to the speaker is one that lives on in his memory, even when he is not seeking to remember it. In any mood, be it "vacant" or "pensive" (Line 20), the memory of this natural experience made a profound impact on mind of the speaker. The profundity of nature is what Wordsworth explores in this poem, and he does so by showing how a simple view of daffodils surrounding a bay affected the spirit of the narrator forever. Natural beauty has a power to which no man made object can possibly compare. One may remember the sight of a beautiful house, a painting, or an elegant piece of furniture, but natural splendor has an effect on the mind and on the soul that words cannot really justify. Wordsworth explores the psyche of a narrator deeply changed by the view he once saw, and that universal theme speaks to the fact that nature's power is one that can never be refuted.

Missing Time for Wordsworth

A poet's use of line breaks is often a deliberate construction used to signify an important meaning within the greater theme of the text as a whole. In William Wordsworth's "A slumber did my spirit seal", the author uses this construction. One may often think that a poem so brief in length could not contain much significant meaning, yet Wordsworth tells a beautiful and tragic love story spanning a unknown number of years in eight simple lines.

It is in the lack on concrete detail that Wordsworth tells the greatest story in this poem. Beginning his poem from perspective of a smitten lover, Wordsworth shows a narrator fascinated by his lover, thinking she can never age or die. He writes, "She seem'd a thing that could not feel/The touch of earthly years" (Lines 3-4). So immortal did she seem that death never crossed the speaker's mind. Impervious to age, a shock comes in the next stanza when the audience learns that she dies. Moving from eternity to morality by a pause that offers no information is how Wordsworth constructs this poem.

Wordsworth opens the second and final stanza with, "No motion has she now, no force/She neither hears nor sees" (Lines 5-6). This jump is certainly an abrupt one considering the fact that just a blank space before, the beloved was not only alive, but unaffected by death. Yet, as stated above, it is  truly in this gap that Wordsworth builds the tragedy of this tale. One cannot know what surpassed in the missing time, so the possibilities are infinite.

The structure that Wordsworth utilizes offers an analysis that a more traditional ballad structure cannot. Here, the absence of story creates the possibility for numerous other ones. Instead of spinning a traditional tragedy spanning decades that many other of his contemporaries might have done, Wordsworth instead writes a simple poem packed with beautiful meaning and despair. Having a narrator separated from the fears of natural humans who is in love with a woman he views as immortal, only to have reality come crashing onto them both is a tale that one would think must take place in more than eight lines of poetry. There lies the genius of Wordsworth's writing and what sets this poem apart from many others in this period.

Art Imitating Life for William Blake

In both "The Lamb" and "The Tyger", William Blake seeks to understand from whence these creatures came to be. Using a certain simplicity of verse, Blake creates two poems whose tone reflects the nature of the creatures that he is describing. In "The Lamb", Blake creates a tone that encourages a thoughtful gentleness that mirrors the nature of the lamb whose origin he questions,whereas in "The Tyger", Blake illustrates the exotic, fearful nature of this beautiful and mysterious creature with powerful imagery.

When one thinks of the nature of a lamb, pastoral imagery might come to mind. Meadows filled with natural splendor bear witness to the calm innocence of the lambs that inhabit it. Blake captures this essence in his poem by calling into question who made this beautiful lamb and adding beautiful imagery with his interrogation. He remarks the lamb's "tender voice" (Line 7) his "softest clothing wooly bright" (Line 6) and how he has the power to make "all the vales rejoice" (Line 8). The imagery that these phrases evoke call to mind the innocent nature of this animal, and that is the tone with which Blake creates this poem. Linking the lamb to Jesus Christ, Blake refers to the animal as "meek" and "mild" (Line 15), just like the young Christ. In this poem, art truly imitates life by calling to mind the innocence and simplicity of the tender animal who lends its name to Blake's text.

For "The Tyger", Blake uses the same approach of using the animal's nature to frame the tone of his poem, but the imagery and attitude that he creates could not be more different. Commencing the work with "Tyger Tyger, burning bright/In the forests of the night" (Lines 1-2), Blake begins with a strong statement as to the powerful presence that this creature evokes. Questioning who could frame the creature's "fearful symmetry" (Line 4), Blake is not as able as he was in his previous poem to link this animal to the "meek" and "mild" Christ child described earlier. Indeed, Blake questions who could "dare" to create an animal as ferocious as this "tyger" several times throughout the poem. With its fiery eyes and sinewy heart, Blake wonders, "Did he who made the lamb make thee?" (Line 20).

In both of these poems, Blake questions the origins of the creatures who entitle his works. While one may attest quite early that the same entity should have created both, the difference in demeanor, appearance and attitude of both creatures suggests otherwise to this poet. Both poems use the same poetic device of echoing the tone to the nature of the animal: The lamb being gentle and comforting, while the tiger is wild and outlandish. These poems are a true representation of art imitating life, and Blake links the tone of these poems perfectly to the nature of the animals who entitle them.