Ozymandias by Percy Shelley has a bleakness to it that I don't recall seeing in earlier Gothic poetry. There's a sense of the futility of effort that runs throughout the poem, from the desert setting to the words of the ancient King himself. The idea that Ozymandias thinks that his works will outlast the works of all who came after him and be greater still, juxtaposed by the ruinous state of the statue leaves the reader with the feeling that there is no real point in creating anything grand; time itself will sweep away all things.
In Keats Ode to a Nightingale, the second stanza, through its imagery conveys the speakers' want for opium; I say want deliberately for the speaker expressely notes in the first stanza that he has not taken any sort of poison or drug to dull or amplify his senses. The speaker brings to mind the fountain of the Muses (the source of poetic inspiration) and couples this with reference to the goddess of flowers. Opium, being a flower, and being at this time consumed primarily in the form of Laudnaum, a solution of opium, is then an easily noted conclusion. Yet, it seems as though the speaker wants this so that he can feel some sort of connection with the Nightingale. It is an enhancing substance for the speaker, not a dulling one, but the speaker also refrains from taking any sort of opium. Perhaps through this, the speaker gains a significant connection to the natural world the Nightingale inhabits because he is in his natural and non-intoxicated state.
The first part of your commentary actually made me think about the 7th stanza of "Ode to a Nightingale". In "Ozymandias", the fleeting nature of man's existence is highlighted. Ozymandias tries to make a lasting impression on the earth, but Nature reclaims what is hers as the statue is worn away. Nature is a constant,but whatever Man creates will eventually pass away. Stanza 7 of the ode is about the kind of envy that Keats has of the bird because its song is immortal, but nothing he creates can last forever. Like you said, time will eventually sweep away all things, the things that Man creates, but nature remains.
ReplyDeleteI always find it interesting how the Romantics saw Nature as a constant because nowadays, we are always take about how Nature is finite.