Ode To A Nightingale Destruction

There is 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 is often a sought after means to terminate suffering. In his celebrated and remarkable work "Ode to a Nightingale", John Keats portrays a narrator dissatisfied with his lot in life who seeks to end his suffering. 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 vehemently discontented. After a catalogue of metaphors during which Keats’s narrator fails escape through each, the miserable man comes to the conclusion that escape from his life is impossible, and transcendence is a horizon reached only by the song of birds.
Beginning his poem with "My heart aches" (Line 1), Keats delves immediately into the melancholy of his narrator. Feeling lethargic and downtrodden, the speaker describes that he feels as if “of hemlock [he] had drunk” (Line 2). Plagued by a dullness of sense, this man makes clear that it is not envy that he feels toward this bird, “But being too happy in thine happiness” (Line 6). His aching heart imagines this “Dryad of the trees” (Line 7) singing of the coming summer without a care in the world and no knowledge of the suffering of despondent mortals. Wishing to simply forget his life and be one with the carefree bird who sings his immortal song, the narrator explores various methods by which he may attain the same transcendence of this untroubled nightingale.
To achieve this escape, Keats’s narrator first attempts to drown his sorrows in the classic “draught of vintage” (Line 11). He hopes that after imbibing this drink filled with all of ...

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...to achieve by anyone, no matter how powerful or intelligent. The forlorn fancies of pursuing contentment are nearly impossible to come by, and Keats describes the plight of humanity’s suffering in this ode to a creature who will never need to know suffering. Unlike the humans toiling in anguish beneath it, the song of the nightingale is iconic and immortal. Men and women will continue to suffer until their deaths, but the song of the nightingale will continue on forever despite its fragility. Keats explores the futility of escape in this poem. Though a rather macabre and negative portrait of life, the human truth that Keats is able to transcend is a remarkable one. Men may never be able to achieve the ignorant bliss of the creatures of the natural world, but to cherish what they can teach us can separate the joys from the sorrows and the trials from the attractions.