Paradox in John Keats' Odes

TOPIC : Paradox in John Keats' Odes

PAPER 5 : The Romantic Literature

STUDENT'S NAME : Gohil Yashpalsinh B.

CLASS : M.A., Sem-2

ROLL NO. : 16

YEAR : 2013

                                                                                             

                                                   
                                     

What is paradox? 

          If we talk about paradox we can say, in literature the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight. It functions as a method of literary composition - and analysis - which involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.

Literary or rhetorical paradoxes abound in the works of Oscar Wilde and G. K. Chesterton. Other literature deals with paradox of situation; Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Borges, and Chesterton are recognized as masters of situational as well as verbal paradox. Statements such as Wilde’s “I can resist anything except temptation” and Chesterton’s “spies do not look like spies” are examples of rhetorical paradox. Further back, Polonius’ observation that “though this be madness, yet there is method in’t” is a memorable third.  Also, statements that are illogical and metaphoric may be called "paradoxes", for example "the pike flew to the tree to sing". The literal meaning is illogical, but there are many interpretations for this metaphor.

Complexity often happens in the process of analysis, especially when it comes to the nature of the language of literature. As Brooks says, 

“The language of poetry is the language of paradox.”

Paradox is a characteristic of Keats's poetry and thought. It can be found in the following odes by Keats.

(1) Ode on a Grecian Urn :-

          "Ode on a Grecian " is based on a series of paradoxes and opposites: Written, probably in May 1819, this ode, together with Ode to a Nightingale are generally thought of as Keats’s best.

Look at Stanza II. The stanza begins with an idea which, if taken literally, makes no

sense:

 “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

 Are sweeter”(lines 11-12).

          Obviously there can be no “unheard” melodies. However, Keats is creating a paradox in that the pipes on the urn sound “not to the sensual ear” (line 13) but “to the spirit” (line 14). Music ‘heard’ through the imagination can be even sweeter than that heard through the ear. The subject is the youth singing to his girl accompanied by pipemusic. “Sweet” and “soft” establishes the nature of this music. The remainder of the stanza goes on to express the central truth about the urn – the idea that the ecstasies portrayed are frozen forever in poses which suggest the anticipation of desire but which can never be fulfilled. The stanza ends with another paradox in that the lover can never kiss even though so close to winning his goal, but he should be happy nevertheless with the thought that:

“She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!” (lines 19-20)

          Stanza III   continues with the picture created in the second stanza and develops further the paradox which is at the heart of the poem – that perfect joy captured and fixed by art gives more ecstatic pleasure than joy experienced in life as a passing moment and as such is transitory. The subject of the stanza this time is the girl who, frozen in time on the urn, is –

“For ever panting, and for ever young.” (line 27)

          In stanza IV, the scene depicts a procession led by a priest taking the sacrificial cow to the altar. Keats poses the questions of who these people are and to what altar they are leading the beast. The idea of this pagan crowd involved in sacrifice contrast strongly with the two lovers described earlier. Keats does not dwell on this, however, but moves on to imagine a scene not depicted on the urn –

“What little town by river or sea shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel

                       Is emptied of these folk, this pious morn?” (lines 35-37)

          This raises another paradox in the sense that the town, normally a place full of life, is empty and dead. The idea of the sacrifice also introduces the idea of death.

The fifth stanza serve as a summary of the poem. The poet reconsiders the whole urn reflecting that –

“Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

                      As doth eternity…” (lines 44-45)

          Through this change of viewpoint he presents the urn from a new perspective. He now views the urn as an object, a thing without life and the pictures that it displays as “marble men” and the scene a “Cold Pastoral”. This cold lifelessness of the urn, however, does not tell the whole story. Keats has come to see that the urn does not tell a tale – it is the tale. The urn delivers its final message as a “friend to man” (line 48) and to each generation as it comes along. The final

message –

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all

                       Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (lines 49-50)

has provoked much scholarly debate and is both cryptic and paradoxical. Beauty to Keats, though, represented an experience rather than a concept and experiences intensely felt can be

considered as truth. Truth, on the other hand, would have to be beautiful in that it must stimulate our deepest feelings in order to be ‘true’. The final affirmation is more to do with how we know rather than what we know – in other words we know through intensely experienced feelings as opposed to rational thought.

 (2) Ode to a Nightingale

          The exact date that this ode was written is in some doubt but it is dated ‘May 1819’ and references suggest that it may have been written in mid-May.

          Ode to a Nightingale is the longest of Keats’s odes and is the most personal in an autobiographical sense. It is worth noting that in classical times the nightingale was a bird associated with poetry and love and set apart from other birds by its beautiful song. In medieval times the bird was associated with the idea of courtly love often figured in poetry and literature generally.

The poem opens with a sense of pain and numbness –

“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains / My sense” (lines 1-2).

          The comparison to “hemlock”, a poisonous herb, and “some dull opiate”, (line 3), reveal this “ache” to be of a particular kind. This seems to be the kind of pain that is more to do with dull powers of receptivity rather than the conventional sense of pain. This is important in understanding the meaning of the poem which is concerned with the way the poet perceives things and the effect that the nightingale has on this perception. However, this is the prelude to a sense of creativity as Keats reveals the reason for this “numbness”. The effect is paradoxical in that it is a reaction to the happiness he experiences through the nightingale’s song. The poet identifies himself with the bird and is happy but the rub is that he is 

“Too happy in thine happiness” (line 6) and so the sense of joy also brings with it a sense of loss. He then describes how he sees the bird as a “Dryad of the trees” (line 7), presiding over “some melodious plot” (line 8).

          In stanza V, it seems that the poet’s identification with the nightingale was only transient and the poet is in darkness. The many beautiful things which surround the poet are left unseen. However, although all this natural beauty may be denied his eye it is not withheld from his imagination. Once again a paradox is introduced as although the poet is in darkness he presents us with an array of all the beautiful flowers, grasses and trees that surround him and that give out their colours and scents evoking a sense of the creative mood that Keats desires.

Note, though, the combined idea of fragrance and death introduced by the phrase “embalmed darkness”. (line 43)

          Stanza VI develops the idea of Stanza V. The poet is still in darkness but he now distances himself to contemplate the effect on himself of the beauty of nature described in the previous stanza as “Darkling I listen” (line 51), to the song of the bird. However, the idea of death suggested by the use of “embalmed” in the previous stanza is enlarged upon as he talks of having “been half in love with easeful Death” (line 52). He is only “half” in love with the idea, though which again suggests a paradox of his desire for both life and death. His apparent death-wish is immediately dismissed as it only “seems…rich to die” while listening in such ecstasy to the song of the nightingale. If he were to die, though, he would no longer be able

to hear the song of the nightingale even though the bird would continue to sing as a kind of requiem to the poet:

“Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain –

To thy high requiem became a sod” (lines 59-60)