Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats
Event Details
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
In the spring of 1819, Keats was living at Wentworth Place on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Sometime during May – either in the garden of his house or outside the Spaniards Inn – he heard a bird singing. This simple, near universal experience was to inspire the longest of the six odes that he wrote that year, Ode To A Nightingale, a meditation on the contrasting ideas of death and the pursuit of pleasure.
Over two hours, through repeated readings and discussion we will discover a poem with great scope for exploration – the beauty of the language, the ideas of darkness, oblivion and mystery and the creative leaps taken by a poet reaching the height of his powers.
JOINING DETAILS:
- Facilitated by Caroline Hammond
- Single-meeting, Wednesday 19 June 2024, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK)
- £30 to include background materials and opening notes
- Ode to a Nightingale can be read here
