Comparative Poems - Essay Example

During the last couple of weeks, we were studying several poems from different poets. All the poems we learned in class have different subjects or themes. John Keats starts his poem Ode to a Nightingale with his painful feeling. He wants to avoid life’s problems. In his Ode on a Grecian Urn, he started with silence and questions. When we look at both poems’ topics we can see there is a relationship between them. The two have a number of similarities and they also have differences.

In the differing side we see in Ode to a Nightingale the poet starts with his own heartache and sleepy feeling. He speaks as though he is under some kind of drug. He imagines that he hears a nightingale singing somewhere and is not envious of the happiness, but he is happy listening to 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.” (1-6). This part of the poem is saying how the person is feeling as if he is under some control which he cannot explain. On the other hand, in Ode on a Grecian Urn “THOU still unravished bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express” (1-5). The poet has a different feeling than in the first poem.  He is actually saying the opposite feeling of happiness. Instead of beginning with how he feels, the voice is telling us what he is seeing. He is describing things very carefully and the reader becomes curious as he is about the thing that he is telling. The poem is directed actually praise the artwork in the urn.

Ode to a Nightingale is full of images of nature that the author has included. This is understandable simply because the poem is all about a thing of nature. A nightingale is a bird that is known for its beautiful singing voice. Included throughout the poem are common sights seen in nature such as flowers, grass, trees, and leaves. The speaker describes where he is, what he is seeing, and also what he is hearing. He tells of how the birds seem to be so happy in what they are doing and that their happiness comes from something more than just any one particular thing.

But then the subject becomes serious toward the end with the speaker now talking about death. He is now speaking about death as though he is a person. “I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme” (52-53). He is talking as if he actually knows death and unlike many people, he is not afraid of it but is actually in love with it. There is also a sense that he is sweet to it and includes it in many of his poems.

In Ode on a Grecian Urn, Keats is describing the picture in the urn that he is seeing. Unlike Ode to a Nightingale, he is really seeing an actual picture. He is saying how the people or gods, as he himself is not sure, will be forever doing what they are doing. There is the idea that they will be forever and even when everything in the world changes they will still be there kissing, making music, and being happy. The scene will always be Spring and that will never change. He is also describing in the picture many scenes like what looks like a sacrifice in an altar where there is a priest and there is a woman with garlands on her. In this mode, there is also a reminder about how people take art for granted. There is really no appreciation for beauty and something old as a picture in an urn reminds us of this because after many years it remains beautiful. “When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of another woe” (46-47).

There are many similarities between the two poems besides having the same author and both being odes. The two also talk about envy. In Ode to a Nightingale, the author is saying he is not actually jealous of the happiness of the nightingale but in Ode on a Grecian Urn he is somewhat saying he envies how those in the picture will be young forever. Both also talk about music. In the first ode, this is a central theme because the nightingale is all about music and singing but in the second ode it is only a part of it since he mentions it only because it is among the things included in the painting.

 There are similarities and differences between the two poems. But both of them are really beautiful in their own right. They may be difficult to understand especially because it is old English but the meaning of the poems is deeper than what they seem. Among the central theme in both poems is how the speaker tells his feelings. The word happy comes up in both odes but it does not really mean that completely. In ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ happiness was mentioned twice in the first stanza but then the topic went to death. In ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ the same word was mentioned six times in the 3rd stanza. Our study of John Keats’ poems is important in making us understand what the words really mean.