John Keats Analysis

John Keats Theodicy John Keats’ life was short, but through its brevity it forced Keats to ponder certain questions and ideas he may not have had (had he lived a full life). Keats faced imminent death since he knew he had tuberculosis. His self-diagnosis was not wrong, and he died just a year or two after learning about his condition. Though Keats devoted the remaining short time in his life to writing poetry, he suffered hardships with his ability to pursue his passion due to his nearing death. He wanted more time to write more, to experience more, and to live more. But his inability to have these things called him to question why he was in such a predicament that his life be shortened, that he must suffer such hardships and endure the pain

How could he not when he was faced with it so young? His views on mortality help shape his theodicy and why he thinks that the world is a vale of soul making. In “Ode to a Nightingale,” he discusses the idea of mortality in relation to immortal things. He talks about the nightingale and its ease with which it sings and lives as though he envies it: “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains/ My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk/ Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains/ One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:/ Tis not through envy of thy happy lot/ But being too happy in thine happiness/ That thou, light winged dryad of the trees/ in some melodious plot/ of beechen green and shadows numberless/ singest of summer in full throated ease” (Keats, 1-10). He describes the nightingale as a tree spirit who sings in ease and has not a care in the world, while he has an aching heart and his senses are sedated and in a world of oblivion. The contrast between his self-description and the nightingale, which sings in the summer, is light winged and sounds like it has no cares at all, almost elf like, is quite a stark contrast. It almost brings an image of darkness and light to mind. Keats also writes in this same poem, “Darkling I listen; and, for many a time/ I have been half in love with easeful Death/ Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme/ to take into the air my quiet breath;/ now more than ever seems it rich to die/ To cease upon the midnight with no pain/ while thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad/ in such ecstasy!/ Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain/ To thy high requiem become a sod.” This stanza once again shows a contrast between Keats’ darkness and despair in contrast with the nightingale, which is also in the dark but even in such dark still sings with no pain. Keats can’t even bear to listen to the nightingale’s song, as he has ears in vain and, upon listening, he becomes