Language and style

Here, we address the language and the style of the poem “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats. In what follows, you can read some of the most important elements of language and style in the poem.

Playing with the language

The poet plays with language in the poem using figurative speech and multiple metaphors. The nightingale is always associated with mythological creatures, being called “light-wingèd Dryad of the trees” (l. 7).

Also, the references to alcohol and drug effects give the poem a playful tone and mood, making all the lyrical events seems as if they were happening in a dreamy state, creating thus ambiguity and uncertainty:

“That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:” (ll. 19-20)

Furthermore, the effects of poetry are associated with those of alcohol in a figurative manner:

“Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,” (ll. 32-33)

Tense of the verbs

Most of the poem is written in the present tense, the speaker describing events in the present moments, as they happen:

“Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!”(ll. 13-14)

Variations of past tenses are employed to show the results of certain actions in the present and the fact that the nightingale with her song has always been present in the lives of humans:

“The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path” (ll. 63-65)

In order to suggest a feeling of uncertainty caused by the euphoric state the speaker is in, some conditionals are also used: “That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,” (l. 19)

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