Keats' Sensuousness Explored Through 'Ode to a Nightingale' Lens

This essay delves into John Keats' profound use of sensuousness, particularly within his poem 'Ode to a Nightingale.' It argues that Keats' unique ability to engage the five senses sets him apart from his Romantic contemporaries like Wordsworth and Shelley. The analysis highlights how Keats prioritizes sensation over thought, emphasizing the beauty and immortality found in nature, symbolized by the nightingale. The essay explores Keats' focus on experiencing the world through vivid sensory details, creating a compact harmony that allows readers to feel the ironies and genuine emotions within the poem. Ultimately, the essay posits that Keats' sensuousness is not merely descriptive but a means of understanding and appreciating the complexities of human existence and the transient nature of earthly pleasures.

KEATS' SENSUOUSNESS WITH REFERENCE TO ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE
John Keats stands as unique figure of the supreme and classic
representatives of passionate lyrics. Despite the fact that he
inherited specific potentials of his contemporaries, he
acquired his individual characteristic elegance. Keats poems
are magnificent in intelligence, sensuousness, as well as
suggestiveness besides his revelation of delicacy and
exquisiteness devises the utmost principle of whatever the
wisdoms collect from his circumstances. The productivity of
Keats’ language extensively influenced the verses all the way
through the epoch of “nineteenth century”.

Thesis
Sensuousness exists as the feature which is resulting from, otherwise which influences, the five
wisdoms of vision, perceptible choice of audible range, touch, whisper and sense of taste.
Through the verses of, “sensuous poems” it is designed to be the lyrics, which remains dedicated
not in the trend of a sheer impression or a philosophical thought, nevertheless, predominantly to
the activity of providing thrilling sensation to the minds (White 15-21). Sensuousness in poems
would consequently possess a charm by conferring wonderful expression of illustrations, headed
for the ear using its melodic and harmonious resonances, to the informer by exciting the senses
of “smell”, and the like. The poet dedicated to the components of “sensuousness” engages
methods, which concurrently “exploit the aesthetic practice of philological skills for instance,
cadence, as well as verse, alliteration including the exhibition of transferred epithets etc.”
(Hughes and Hughes 136-146)
“There persisted a sense of irritability in Keats, as regards unperturbed pleasure, delicate liking
in beauty as well as in the comfort of exquisiteness to the passion. He soars from unique entity of
Nature to a new one over a butterfly performance, recognizing and drinking honey, besides little
concerned to become diplomatic upon someone”. He remains absolutely and truthfully fervent as
a consequence in his approach towards Nature as explained by Brooke. Keats’s acquaintance
with Hayden correspondingly accepts indication to the keenness of his intellectual awareness:
“The buzzing of a bee, the prospect of a bud, the glimmer of the sun rays give the impression to
create his nature vibrate; at that point his eyes rose, his heroisms glow with as well as his mouth
trembled” (Keats and Tomalin).
Outline
Poetry represents an art which initiates from intellectual pretenses. “Sense impressions” stand as
the focus of rhythmical progression and maximum poets remain further or less appealing to the
beauties of Nature. It occurs whatever the lyricist appreciates and perceives that enlivens his
excitements and thoughts. The passionate and artistic response to these intellectual impressions
produces rhyme. Romantic verse is categorized by sensitive awareness and resourceful ideas. It
fashions the gentleness of beauty, which remains peculiar, mysterious, as well as unusual and
that charm the minds. In the middle of all-inclusive passionate lyricists, Keats stands
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unparalleled for the aesthetic influence of his poems. He existed as the “new” composer of the
romantic poets (Mackinnon, Landseer and Winslow 22-25).
It would conceivably be accurate to portray that all poems follow on formerly from “sense-
impressions” as well as most poets remain in the state of advanced or a reduced extent of the
mark of sensuousness. “Impressions” of the intellects are truthfully, the preliminary theme of the
emotional development, on behalf of what it stands for and whatever the lyricist understands and
make out that stimulates his thoughts and sentiments. It remains his responses to the common
sense- reproductions that raise the lyrics (O’Neill and Saltmarsh 78-81).
The characteristics
In the kingdom of English lyrics, Keats remains unmatched for the sumptuous influence of his
verse and whatever generates his “independence”, as a versifier is the unconditional profusion of
the stage of sensuousness.
Further than uniformly his fellow- Romantic composers, Keats rejoiced in the luxurious
pleasures of natural life. In the works of Wordsworth, the leading intellect represents the sense of
sight, in the lyrics of Shelley, sight as well as sound prevails, however, he may not be entitled to
be virtuously sensuous lyricist for the reason that he creates his rhymes as the tool of societal
transformation (Pennialinus 11-11).
The poet eventually determines that by way of human nature, it is useless to attempt to “drop”
into what is unbearable –the element of physicality of social situation and therefore human
transience and the feasibly inaccessible stage of elementary pleasure and comprehensive
perfection consistently. It drives to the acknowledgment of Keats and no-one else that he
interestingly sorts the practice of entire sensation of aptitudes in his verses. “O for a life of
sensations, rather than of thought” is his way of appreciating beauty (Sumpton 88-90).
According to Richard H. Fogle, the images of the creation state his "unsurpassed capability
to engross, identify with, and cultivate natural objects”. The Nightingale represents a symbol
of attractiveness, immortality, as well as liberty from the dilemmas of the world. Nightingales
are identified for singing at the night. In Greek as well as Roman legend, the Nightingale
correspondingly refers to Philomel with the “cut in the tongue to stop her from expressing her
rape, and was far along changed into nightingale by the deities”.
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The sensation of living and the experience of poetry are inseparable for Keats. His poems
are primarily fruitful at portraying authenticity and his lyrical language presents a sort of
harmony or compactness, which is accomplished in categorizing the readers of the genuineness
that it interconnects. It noticeably works through comforting the humans to observe, to feel
vibrantly the discrete intelligence of “ironies” as realized in Ode to a Nightingale ---
“I cannot see what flowers are at my feet
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs’
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves” (Vassallo 17-21).
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References
Hughes, Sean P. F., and Sarah Hughes. "Keats Memorial Lecture: How Did John Keats’S
Medical Training Influence His Poetry?." The Keats-Shelley Review 31.2 (2017): 136-146. Web.
Keats, John, and Claire Tomalin. Poems Of John Keats. Camberwell, Vic.: Penguin, 2010. Print.
Mackinnon, Nick, Tarquin Landseer, and Pat Winslow. "Poetry." The Keats-Shelley Review 27.1
(2013): 22-25. Web.
O’Neill, Michael, and Hannah Baker Saltmarsh. "Poetry." The Keats-Shelley Review 29.2
(2015): 78-81. Web.
Pennialinus. "Keats's 'Ode To A Nightingale'." Notes and Queries s11-V.106 (1912): 11-11.
Web.
Sumpton, Laila. "Poetry." The Keats-Shelley Review 26.2 (2012): 88-90. Web.
Vassallo, Peter. "Seascapes And The ‘Truth Of The Imagination’ In The Poetry Of Keats And
Byron." The Keats-Shelley Review 32.1 (2018): 17-21. Web.
White, Adam. "‘High-Commission’D’ Fancy In The Poetry Of Leigh Hunt, John Keats, John
Hamilton Reynolds, And John Clare." The Keats-Shelley Review 27.1 (2013): 15-21. Web.
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