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This section provides NCERT Solutions for Class 11 English Woven Words Poem 11: Ode to a Nightingale, designed to deepen students’ understanding of mortality, transcendence, and the contrast between human suffering and the eternal beauty of nature. The solutions analyse the poem’s themes, tone, and poetic devices, helping the students in effective exam preparation. You can also download the free PDF for quick revision.
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Explore Notes of Class 11 English Woven Words
NCERT Solutions Class 11 English Woven Words Poem 11: Ode to a Nightingale
Here are the NCERT Solutions for Class 11 English Woven Words Poem 11: Ode to a Nightingale, designed to enhance comprehension of the poem’s themes, imagery, and emotional depth for effective revision.
UNDERSTANDING THE POEM
- How does the nightingale’s song plunge the poet into a state of ecstasy?
The nightingale’s song plunges the poet into ecstasy by evoking a sense of transcendent joy and liberation from worldly pain. In the first stanza, Keats describes the song as causing a “drowsy numbness” that “pains / My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,” suggesting an overwhelming, almost intoxicating effect. The song’s “full-throated ease” in the “melodious plot” transports him to an idyllic realm, as seen in “Singest of summer in full-throated ease,” where he feels a fleeting escape from human suffering, entering a state of blissful immersion in nature’s beauty.
- What are the unpleasant aspects of the human condition that the poet wants to escape from?
The poet seeks to escape the harsh realities of human existence, including mortality, suffering, and transience. In stanza three, he lists these aspects: “The weariness, the fever, and the fret / Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; / Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, / Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies.” These lines depict a world filled with physical decay, emotional anguish, and the inevitability of death, contrasting sharply with the nightingale’s carefree, immortal song, which the poet yearns to join to flee these burdens.
- What quality of ‘beauty’ and ‘love’ does the poem highlight?
The poem highlights the eternal and transcendent quality of beauty and love, embodied by the nightingale’s song. Beauty, as seen in “Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!” is timeless, existing beyond human mortality and decay. Love, though fleeting in human experience, is idealised in the bird’s song, which evokes a pure, unattainable joy, as in “Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget.” The nightingale’s song represents an unchanging beauty and love that persist across generations, contrasting with the transient nature of human emotions and experiences.
- How does the poet bring out the immortality of the bird?
Keats portrays the nightingale as immortal through its song, which transcends time and human limitations. In stanza seven, he writes, “Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! / No hungry generations tread thee down,” suggesting that the bird’s song remains untouched by the passage of time or human struggles. The song’s continuity is further emphasised in “The voice I hear this passing night was heard / In ancient days by emperor and clown,” indicating its eternal presence across history, connecting diverse listeners through its unchanging beauty, unlike the mortal poet.
- How is the poet tossed back from ecstasy into despair?
The poet is tossed back from ecstasy to despair by the realisation that his imaginative escape through the nightingale’s song is fleeting. In the final stanza, the word “forlorn” acts as a trigger: “Forlorn! The very word is like a bell / To toll me back from thee to my sole self!” This abrupt shift pulls him from the ecstatic realm of the nightingale’s song to the reality of his mortal condition. The fading of the bird’s song, “Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,” leaves him questioning its reality, “Was it a vision, or a waking dream?” plunging him into despair over his inability to sustain the transcendence.
- How does the poem bring out the elusive nature of happiness in human existence?
The poem portrays happiness as elusive by contrasting the fleeting joy inspired by the nightingale’s song with the enduring pain of human life. The poet’s brief ecstasy, as in “Away! away! for I will fly to thee,” is temporary, as he is inevitably drawn back to reality, “To toll me back from thee to my sole self.” The nightingale’s song represents an unattainable ideal of happiness, as human joy is marred by “weariness, the fever, and the fret.” The poem suggests that true, lasting happiness is illusory, accessible only momentarily through imagination or art, before reality reasserts itself.
TRY THIS OUT
- The poet has juxtaposed sets of opposites like numbness pains, waking dream. How does this contribute to the poetic effect? What is this figure of speech called? List other such pairs from poems that you have read.
The juxtaposition of opposites like “numbness pains” and “waking dream” creates a paradoxical effect, intensifying the poem’s emotional and thematic depth by highlighting the tension between joy and suffering, reality and imagination. This figure of speech is called an oxymoron, where contradictory terms are combined to evoke complex emotions. Examples from other poems include:
- “Parting is such sweet sorrow” (Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet), blending joy and pain.
- “Living death” (W.B. Yeats’ The Second Coming), suggesting a state of existence marked by despair.
These oxymorons enhance the poetic effect by capturing the complexity of human experience, much like Keats’ use in the poem.
- The poet has evoked the image of wine—why has this image been chosen?
The image of wine, as in “a draught of vintage” and “That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,” is chosen to symbolise intoxication, escape, and sensory pleasure. Wine evokes a state of blissful oblivion, aligning with the poet’s desire to transcend the painful realities of life through the nightingale’s song. It also carries connotations of Bacchic revelry, linking to the classical imagery of stanza five, where the poet rejects “Bacchus and his pards” for the “viewless wings of Poesy,” suggesting that imagination, like wine, offers a purer, more spiritual escape from worldly suffering.
- The senses of sound, sight, and taste are evoked in the poem. Locate instances of these.
- Sound: The nightingale’s song, described as “Singest of summer in full-throated ease” (stanza one) and “The voice I hear this passing night” (stanza seven), evokes the sense of hearing through its melodious, transcendent quality.
- Sight: Visual imagery appears in “vermilion flowers” and “pastoral eglantine” (stanza five), painting a vivid, colourful forest scene, though imagined, as the poet notes, “I cannot see what flowers are at my feet.”
- Taste: The sense of taste is evoked through the wine imagery, such as “a draught of vintage” and “the blushful Hippocrene” (stanza two), suggesting a sensory indulgence that parallels the nightingale’s intoxicating song.
- The poet addresses the nightingale and talks to the bird throughout the poem. What is this kind of poem called?
This kind of poem, where the poet directly addresses an entity (in this case, the nightingale), is called an ode. Specifically, “Ode to a Nightingale” is a lyric poem in the form of an ode, characterised by its elevated style, emotional depth, and direct address to a person, object, or abstract concept, expressing admiration or contemplation. The poet’s address to the nightingale, as in “My heart aches” and “Thou wast not born for death,” exemplifies this form.
- Make a list of all the adjectives in the poem along with the nouns they describe. List the phrases that impressed you most in the poem.
Adjectives and Nouns:
- Drowsy numbness (stanza one)
- Full-throated ease (stanza one)
- Melodious plot (stanza one)
- Beechen Green (stanza five)
- Verdurous glooms (stanza five)
- Pastoral eglantine (stanza five)
- Embalmed darkness (stanza five)
- Dewy wine (stanza five)
- Hungry generations (stanza seven)
- Glimmering landscape (stanza eight)
Impressive Phrases: - “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains / My sense” – Captures the overwhelming emotional impact of the nightingale’s song.
- “Away! away! for I will fly to thee, / Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards” – Evokes the power of imagination as a means of escape.
- “Forlorn! the very word is like a bell / To toll me back from thee to my sole self” – Powerfully conveys the abrupt return to reality.
- “Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!” – Emphasises the eternal nature of the nightingale’s song.
- Find out the other odes written by Keats and read them.
John Keats wrote several notable odes, including:
- Ode on a Grecian Urn
- Ode to Psyche
- Ode to Autumn
- Ode on Melancholy
- Ode on Indolence
Students are encouraged to read these odes to explore Keats’ recurring themes of beauty, transience, and the interplay between art and life, available in poetry anthologies or online literary resources.
- Find out the odes written by Shelley and read them.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, a contemporary of Keats, wrote notable odes, including:
- Ode to the West Wind
- Ode to a Skylark
- Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
- To a Skylark (often considered an ode due to its structure and tone)
Students should read these odes to understand Shelley’s exploration of nature, inspiration, and the sublime, available in poetry collections or online literary archives.
Also Read: NCERT Solutions Class 11 English Hornbill Poem 1 A Photograph (Free PDF)
Download NCERT Solutions Class 11 English Woven Words Poem 11: Ode to a Nightingale
You can download the free PDF of NCERT Solutions Class 11 English Woven Words Poem 11: Ode to a Nightingale for effective revision.
Download more NCERT Solutions of Class 11 English ‘Woven Words’ here!
| Poem 1: The Peacock Solution |
| Poem 2: Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds Solution |
| Poem 3: Coming Solution |
| Poem 4: Telephone Conversation Solution |
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