English: Ode of Immortality vs. Ode to a Nightingale - Essay Example

On the other hand, the Child changes from the unfallen state of Eden, to the fallen state of societal problems and the world of reason and rationale that overwhelms it and disallows it from remaining innocent, distancing it from nature. Unlike the Nightingale, the Child is claimed by society. Although both poems fit comfortably within the definition of a Romantic Ode, giving them many similarities, there are some significant differences between the two writers that provide their poems with vastly different impact.

The Romantic Ode is perfectly described by M.H Abrams as: “the personal ode of description and passionate meditation.”i The Romantic poem was written during the early 1800s to the early 20th century. During the ‘Romantic Period’, the poets took part in a movement against the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, where they protested (with their poetry) the ideals of those Europeans who sought to bring reason and ‘Enlightenment’ to the world.ii They generally wrote poetry in the form of Ode’s.

An Ode is formed in lyrical verse. So the poems were not only meant to be read as poetry, but the ode was also sung.iii In these Odes, the Romantics expressed their defiance of the so-called ‘reason’ that both the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment brought to society. They expressed their eagerness to return to nature and their feelings of discontent with the stresses of society that this ‘reason’ brought to humans as they aged. Both John Keats and William Wordsworth are poets of the Romantic Era, and therefore their poems that I will be comparing are characteristic of the Romantic Ode.

John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale describes the Nightingale as an entity within nature that (as stated in the introductory quote in the essay topic) exemplifies the exalted state of nature while William Wordsworth’s Ode of Immortality describes the Child as the same, an