Ode to a Nightingale and Negative Capability

"Ode to a Nightingale"
By John Keats

Text can be found here: http://www.rc.umd.edu/rchs/reader/nightingale.html

Yes, folks, another romantic poem about nightingales.

Since Classical times, nightingales have been associated with melancholy and sadness. The Romantics did love their melancholy (they'd probably be prescribed Zoloft today). In another poem we read, by Samuel Coleridge, the speaker discusses how we have projected this melancholy on the nightingale, and he proposes we project happier meanings to the nightingale's song. Keats doesn't seem to agree with this theory; instead, he uses the bird as a metaphor while he meditates about his own demise. Basically, "Ode to a Nightingale" is pretty depressing.

Keats is famous for coming up with the poetical theory of negative capability. Negative capability, according to Keats in a letter to a friend, is when a poet can express feelings of uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts without necessarily trying to find solutions or answers to these problems. He said Shakespeare was a master at negative capability. He was able to wade into these deep, dark questions regarding death and the afterlife and accept the fact that the questions might be unanswerable. Keats attempted to use negative capability technique in "Ode to a Nightingale." He delves into his fears about his own mortality. Throughout the poem he tries to escape his fears, but keeps bouncing back into anxiety. He tries alcohol, escaping in nature, and finally finds that death is the only escape. Pretty melancholy.

Throughout the poem, he never really finds a satisfying answer to his depressing situation. This is why "Ode to a Nightingale" is a brilliant exploration of negative capability.

--B.E.