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John Keats composed his “Ode to a Nightingale” in May 1819, while he was living at the home of his friend, Charles Brown
. Like the five other odes he wrote around this time, this one features an anonymous speaker whose lyric “I” many critics have identified with Keats himself. This speaker begins the poem in a state of heartache that seems related to an underlying anxiety about death, fueled perhaps by their first-hand experience of human pain and suffering. The song of a nightingale inspires the speaker, sending them into a reverie about the immorality of art. But when the nightingale flies away, the speaker is once again left to themself—isolated in their anxiety.Read a summary & analysis, an analysis of the speaker, and explanations of important quotes from “Ode to a Nightingale.”
