Critical Analysis Of John Keats's Ode To A Nightingale

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In an ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ by John Keats, the speaker is setting up the tone to be a rather sad poem. Simply, that is not what he intends to continue to do throughout the poem, though. It is more so the speaker working through the realistic aspects of life and dying. How even the good things in life, can and will leave you such as drinking. Being drunk is fun, you forget what you want to forget, but eventually it comes back. The speaker explains in this stanza that sadness is like alcohol, it makes you numb and aches, yet you want more of it – similar to the notion of an addiction. That is how the speaker describes the nightingale in the first stanza of the poem. Although that is how the poem seems to start off, it seems that he is conflicting his feelings throughout the rest of the poem.
In the second stanza the speaker yearns for a drink of wine, but the wine that is made deep inside the earth and is filled with ‘vintage’ fruits. The speaker is explaining the taste of flowers and plants within that wine coming from the earth. The speaker describes how the wine tastes like flowers – but, also tastes like happiness and dancing. The speaker continues to talk about the beautiful taste of
The speaker explains how he cannot see anything and that is because it is night time. Like stated before, a play on the nightingale name. The speaker describes the smell of ‘soft incense,’ which could be from the trees (Oak, maybe?). The speaker continues to walk around in the dark, without being able to see much – if anything at all. While the speaker is in the night he describes the smells of what is around him based on what season he thinks it is. The speaker not only describes what he is smelling, but he also is listing things he can hear as well. These last 8 lines describe what it is like being in the dark, similar to what it would be like when you are dead. Minus the ability to smell and hear anything at

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