We have already seen that Keats is fascinated by paradox. His principle of Negative Capability encourages, or perhaps even demands, that he write about those moments when one feels caught between life and death, joy and suffering, reality and fantasy, and in the case of “Ode to a Nightingale” particularly, intense sensation or emotion and numbness, and engagement with the human world and withdrawal from it. Consider how Keats considers any of these liminal (meaning occupying both sides of a boundary or threshold) points in this poem.
Keats studied to become an apothecary (at the time the equivalent of a general medical practitioner today) and surgeon at Guy’s Hospital, and his medical education was probably among the best available in the world at that time. He studied anatomy and attended dissections of cadavers, a practice that was still considered somewhat suspect. He studied chemistry, which led to him often describing in his letters the effects of poetry in chemical terms — using words like solution, suspension, dissolve, and precipitate. Do you find any evidence of his medical background in this ode?
This poem is too long to explicate in a post, but if you want to perform an explication, you may focus your attention on one stanza or passage of similar length.
Eavan Boland, one of Ireland’s most acclaimed contemporary poets, calls her poem an ode. In what ways does it conform to the model of the ode you saw in Keats’s odes? Does it deviate in any important ways? How does the poem function as a tribute to or appreciation of suburbia?
“Ode to Suburbia” is a strictly formal poem, but the form is unusual. Identify the poem’s formal elements and consider how they function. If a successful poem requires that form recapitulate theme, how does Boland accomplish that in this ode?