Stanza 3 of Keats “Ode to a Nightingale”; Death and Disjunction

This particular stanza very clearly depicts a disjunction between the nightingale (nature and life) and the speaker, presumably Keats himself. In fact, the bird isn’t physically present at all in this stanza- it has ‘faded’ away at the end of the previous stanza, into “the forest dim” (line 20). Keats expresses his desire to fade away with the bird before going into detail as to why he is separate from and yet longs for this connection to the bird, and why it isn’t present within this part of the poem. The only physicality present in this stanza is mortality and death, as represented in “the weariness”, “the fever”, and “palsy shakes”- all of which reflect Keats own personal experience with death, both as a former medical student as well as his experience with death of his family members. Here, in this reality, “Beauty” and “Love” become irrelevant and temporary, superseded instead by only sorrow and despairs. In fact, Keats clearly states that “to think is to be full of despair” (line 27), indicating that what he longs for is the nightingale’s ignorance of death and mortality. He desires to “quite forget/What thou among the leaves has never known” (lines 21-22). Merely existing, and thinking about existence, is what Keats dreads and sees as something sorrowful. To “fade far away, dissolve” (line 21) is essentially Keats call to Death as a reprieve from the sorrows, pains, and losses of life. The bird, in its absence from this stanza, reflects Keats distance from life and a desire to live.