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WJEC A Level A* John Keats essay - ‘A poet of overwhelming ambivalence’. To what extent do you agree?
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Wjec/ Eduqas english literature John Keats (pre-1900 poetry) essay. This essay received an A*
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Caitlyn-Ann Shortland‘A poet of overwhelming ambivalence’. To what extent do
you agree?
For Keats, introspective discovery of meanings was a key aim in his poetry. Through
contemplating the true nature of all that surrounds him from beauty and love to
death and mortality, Keats expresses a sense of ambivalence towards, arguably, all
subjects in his poetry. The young poet finds ‘pleasure in death’ and ‘death in
pleasure’ (Grixti) and through his almost overwhelmingly abundant use of polysemy,
dichotomies and antithesis, he encourages his readers to reciprocate his ambivalence
in order to join him in his quest for meaning – for ‘truth’…
In ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, Keats utilises onomatopoeia, antithesis, allusions and
phonetic devices to establish an immediate sense of ambivalence. The poem begins;
‘My heart aches’, by starting the with three monosyllabic words with long vowels,
Keats immediately slows the pace of the poem in order to create a sense of
weariness. The harsh ‘t’ and ‘ch’ sounds in ‘heart aches’ and heavy plosives and ‘d’
sounds in ‘drowsy numbness pains’ suggest the weightiness of Keats’ dreary mood.
However, this is then contrast by the light sounds in the second half of the stanza
such as in ‘light winged Dryad’. Moreover, the pleasure associated with the
nightingale’s song is musically suggested by the repetition of the long ‘ee’ sounds in
‘beechen’, ‘green’ and ‘ease’. Here. The use of antithesis creates an immediate sense
of ambiguity for the reader allowing them to experience the discombobulating
effects of the nightingale’s song and Keats’ own ambivalence between existing in a
state of fantasy or reality. Keats alludes to Greek mythology as he compares the
nightingales song to the forgetful properties of the river of Lethe. At the time that
Keats wrote the poem, he was suffering with tuberculosis and in need of opiates for
pain relief, here, we see the effects of the drugs seep into his poem as the poet
forces the reader to experience the same drunkenness. However, there is a sense of
ambiguity as the reader is not certain if the speaker is in fact drowsy from the drugs
or simply entranced by the beauty of the nightingale’s song. Perhaps, here we can
see links to Keats’ passionate love for Fanny Brawne whom he admitted to have
‘ravish’d him by a power’ he ‘could not resist’. Perhaps, Brawne is symbolised by this
nightingale which, through her beauty (symbolised by the song), allows the weak and
dreary speaker an escape form the cruel and painful world in a state of ecstasy and
permanence. Luczynska-Holdys comments that ‘all Keats’ women seem to embody a
promise of permanence’.
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