Close reading of John Keats's “Ode to a Nightingale,” details a speaker in thought while observing a nightingale singing nearby. This is not the only time Keats writes from the perspective of a reflective speaker, as in "When I fear I may cease to be", but "Ode to a Nightingale" stands out from other works by Keats using a different tone, different syntactic structure and metaphor. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay “Ode to a Nightingale” opens with the speaker describing how his heart “aches” and that a “sleepy numbness” makes his whole being ache. , as if he had drunk a poison or “downed a boring opiate” (Nightingale 1-3). The speaker seeks to express a feeling of pain and terror within him, as if he had taken a drug meant to harm him. The speaker lives in pain. Conversely, the speaker of “When I Have Fears” talks about fear. The speaker fears an early death; he wants to have “stacked books” that contain his words as “the rich gather [holding] ripe grain” (Fears 3-4). The difference between the two speakers is that the speaker in "When I Have Fears" has within him a certain hope (inherently through his fear of an early death instead of accepting that possibility) of not dying before having written what he sees himself capable of, while the speaker of “Nightingale” has completely succumbed to his feelings of fear. fear, pain and sorrow. Keal uses both speakers to describe a feeling of despair in both poems, but the emphasis on pain in "Ode to a Nightingale" provides a contrast with the emphasis on fear in "When I have Fears that I May Cease to Be.” uses structure to contrast his works. From a perspective point of view, both poems are a look into the thoughts of the respective speaker, the latter being intentionally unidentified. Currently being written, “Ode to a Nightingale” includes eight stanzas with 10 lines of poetry per stanza. “When I Have Fears,” conversely, is a sonnet containing 14 lines of poetry in a single stanza. "Nightingale" features an AB, AB, CDE, CDE rhyme scheme for each stanza, while "When I have Fears" uses an AB, AB, CD, CD, EF, EF, GG rhyme scheme for the entire the work. The varying lengths allow the respective poems to take on their full meaning. When I have fears” is more compact; the speaker describes his fear as if it were nothing new to him. "Nightingale" being much longer, the focus is on the speaker observing an external force resonating within him at that moment, although he also dwells on personal issues. The nightingale itself allows Keats to explore a desire in the speaker of “Ode to a Nightingale”; escape. The “light-winged Tree Dryad” sings “of summer with full-throated ease” (Nightingale 5-10). Its song recalls summer, “[the taste] of Flora”, “the greenery of the countryside, the dance, the Provençal song and the cheerfulness burned by the sun” (Rossignol 13-14). The speaker wants "a beaker full of the hot South" and full of "the blushing Hippocrene" (Nightingale 15-16), a fountain whose waters are said to provide poetic inspiration. The world he envisions through the bird's song offers a striking contrast to the world in which he lives. Living in the leaves, the nightingale has never known the “weariness, fever” or “worry” that exist in the world of men. . In this world, men “are heard moaning,” cerebral palsy “shakes out a few sad last gray hairs,” and “where youth fades, thins like a specter, and dies.” » (Nightingale.