A Brief Summary of John Keat’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale‪’‬

The "Ode to a Nightingale" is one of the beautiful poems of John Keats. One day in a forest area the poet hears a beautiful song of the nightingale bird. This provokes him to ponder over the matters relating to human mortality, the nature of the world, human sufferings etc.

The poem explores the relationship between two different types of life. On the one hand, there is the human life. It is filled with sorrow. On the other hand, there is nature represented by the nightingale. The opposition between two different types of life is outlined from the very beginning of the poem. The poet perceives the song of the bird as a kind of eternal perfection, a beauty created by nature that humankind, for all its efforts and strife, struggles to match.

It appears as though the poem seeks to question whether nature—represented by the nightingale and its song—represents a kind of beauty greater than anything that humans can make, a beauty that is more pure and eternal. The poet weighs up the possible beauty of poetry against the overwhelming natural beauty of the nightingale's song but could not find a satisfactory answer.