Sensuousness and pictorial qualities in Keats' poetry: reference to 'Ode to a Nightingale' and 'To Autumn'

      

Discuss sensuousness and pictorial qualities in Keats’ poetry with reference to Ode to a Nightingale and To Autumn.

A thorough study of Keats’ poems like Ode to a Nightingale and To Autumn justifies how Keats lived for ‘a life of sensations’. Opening up with a keen sensation of agony, Ode to a Nightingale soon gives place to ‘a drowsy numbness. Keats’ poetry excels in vividly sensuous images in the lines full of sensuousness and the visual picture of a drinking vessel. In the closing stanza of Ode to Autumn, a fantastic reconstruction of the dying autumnal twilight suggests the magnificent perfection of Keats’ poetic sensibility. Ode to a Nightingale seems to be suffused with pictures, mostly visual, but occasionally manifested with the aural, the tactile and the olfactory portraits. To Autumn is also full of sensuous pictures. Stanza I depicts the fruits of autumn. Stanza II of the ode again delineates autumn as the harvester in the lingering fulfillment process of autumn. Among all the English Romantics, Keats is the most sensuous and artistic. Keats spoke about ‘negative capability’ as a poet’s hallmark. On the other hand, Matthew Arnold finds Keats to be ‘abundantly and enchantingly sensuous’. In a nutshell, Ode to a Nightingale and To Autumn both constitute a strong undercurrent of sensuousness. They add to the charming beauty of Keats’ odes.