Ode to a Nightingale

I was having a wonder around the The National Gallery the other day. They’d had a re-hang and I was very confused. It felt like I was playing hide-and-seek with some of the artwork. There was one that caught my eye. Maybe its been there for a while, maybe it hasn’t… But ‘The Enchanted Castle’ 1664 by Claude took me by surprise. Even more so when I found out that it helped influence this weeks post! I was rather dubious when I read that to be honest, but I thought I’d re-read this wondrous poem and see what the damn fuss is about. And to be fair, that painting is reflected in the poem.

But there is something rather toxic about this poem, stunning as Keats language is. It is a very romantic poem, full of sighs and longing but the opening lines evoke a heady scent:

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had

Drunk.

The love is poisonous, there are a lot of illusions to death; the river of hades ‘Lethe’ is mentioned, which, when drunk, makes souls forget their time on Earth. Our ode to the nightingale, suddenly switches to talks of happiness, although the narrator is envious of happiness, they cannot help but long for it. The nightingale is elusive, unattainable. But the song that the bird sings is seemingly perfect to behold.

In some melodious plot

Of Beecher green, and shadows

Numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

Now, lets talk about that painting. I can see it reflected, word for word in this stunning stanza:

Already with thee! Tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays:

But there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I may not be an expert in art, but the painting by Claude is dark and brooding. The sun that shines brightly in the foreground barely touches the figure in the forefront of the picture. The castle, which dominates the landscape, feels cold and distant. Like the last few lines of the stanza above. It is what potentially makes this painting seem ‘enchanted’ although this picture influenced the poem the magic is most felt in the isolation of the figure and the stone cold castle.We see this reflected again in the next few lines:

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Is this poem about love or death? Keats seems to swing between darkly romantic language and the call of death. The nightingale is a pastoral muse of creativity, purity, virtue and goodness. It comes non stark contrast to the setting of the painting. But remember the figure, there is a small figure in the foreground, one that is surrounded by myth and magic. Is this unknown character full of longing or is this the nightingale that Keats speaks of? Perhaps we shall never know, we can only guess. This poem is enchanting and you can feel the influences of this painting flow through. Re-read the poem in full and look at that painting,, for a poet who lived such a short, but tragic life this work that was produced is full of surprises and beauty. ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, is by no means an exception.