John Keats (1795-1821)
Things to Consider:
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Negative Capability
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Role of Nature
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Role of Art
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Imagination
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Ode
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Apostrophe
** Homework Questions **
615:
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What is negative capability?
"Ode to a Nightingale"
On-line version (w/ good notes )
617:
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What is hemlock (2)? Why does the speaker feel as if he has drunk
it?
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What is vintage (11)?
618:
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What does the speaker long to forget?
619:
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Why "seems it rich to die" (55)?
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Explain: "The fancy cannot cheat so well / As she is fam'd to
do" (73-4).
See other examples
"Ode on a Grecian Urn"
On-line version (w/ good notes )
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How does this poem compare to Shakepeare's Sonnet #18?
620:
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Why are unheard melodies sweeter than heard ones (11-12)?
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Explain: "She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, / For
ever wilt thou love and she be fair" (19-20).
621:
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Explain: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all / Ye know
on earth, and all ye need to know" (49-50).
Other Discussion Questions:
"Ode to a Nightingale"
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What is Lethe (4)?
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What is the "blushful Hippocrene" (16)?
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Who is Ruth (66)?
More Complex Questions:
(Source: McGraw-Hill Guide to English Literature, vol.
2)
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Why does the speaker say that the urn "canst thus express / A flowery
tale more sweetly than our rhyme" (3-4)? Explain what this means
and how it might be so.
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This poem is an apostrophe to an inanimate object. How does this
rhetorical device function in this poem?
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In the ode, the speaker establishes a contrast between life as it is
represented on the urn and life as it is lived. What is the nature
of this contrast, and where does it surface in this poem?
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