Ode on Melancholy

[Angel]

Ode on Melancholy

John Keats

1.
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

2.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

3.
She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

May, 1819

[Angel]

Vocabulary and Allusions

Stanza I

Line 1,

Lethe: river in the underworld Hades in which souls about to be reborn bathed to forget the past; hence, river of forgetfulness.

Line 2 and Line 4,

wolf's-bane:Queen of Hades. "Nightshade" and "wolfsbane" are poisonous herbs from which sedatives and opiates were extracted.
Proserpine: is the queen of the infernal region. Prosperpine was kidnapped by Pluto and taken to Hades, his kingdom. Her mother Demeter, the goddess of fertility and grain, grieved for her loss and the earth became sterile. Proserpine was returned to her mother for six months each year when Demeter's joy is reflected in fertility and crops. Proserpine's story, with its connection to the change of the seasons, is appropriate for this poem.

Line 5,

yew-berries: symbol of mourning and death. The yew is traditionally associated with mourning.
rosary: prayer beads.

Line 6,

beetle: The Egyptians regarded the large black beetle as sacred; as a symbol of resurrection, a jewel-beetle or scarab was placed in tombs.
death-moth: the death's head moth, so called because its markings resemble a human skull.

Line 7,

Psyche: in Greek, the soul or mind as well as butterfly (used as its emblem).

Line 8,

mysteries: secret religious rites.

Line 9,

I.e., sorrow needs contrast to sustain its intensity.

Stanza III

Line 1,

She: The goddess Melancholy.

Line 8,

palate: the roof of the mouth, hence, the sense of taste; sometimes, intellectual or aesthetic taste.
fine: refined, sensitive.

Line 10,

trophies: Symbols of victory, such as banners, hung in religious shrines.




sources: academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu
________The Norotn Anthology of Poetry; fifth ed.;2005

[Angel]

Ode on Melancholy

General Comments

Circumstances are like Clouds continually gathering and bursting--while we are laughing the seed of some trouble is put into the wide arable land of events--while we are laughing it sprouts it grows and suddenly bears a poison fruit which we must pluck.

(Keats, letter to his brother and sister, spring 1819)

In "Ode on Melancholy" Keats accepts the truth he sees: joy and pain are inseparable and to experience joy fully we must experience sadness or melancholy fully. This ode expresses Keats's view wholeheartedly; it differs significantly from "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn," in which the poet-dreamer attempts to escape from reality into the ideal and unchanging world of the nightingale and the urn. Keats valued intensity of emotion, intensity of thought, and intensity of experience; fulfillment comes from living and thinking passionately. Keats does not shrink from the implication that feeling intensely means that grief or depression may well cause anguish and torment. This poem has a logical structure or progression. Stanza I urges us not try to escape pain. Stanza II tells us what to do instead--embrace the transient beauty and joy both of nature and of human experience, which contain pain and death. Stanza III makes clear that in order to experience joy we must experience the sorrow that beauty dies, joy evaporates.

Ours is a world of change, of flux; the "pure wine / Of happiness" (Keats's phrase) does not exist. Melancholy has her shrine in the temple of delight precisely because melancholy and delight are unseparable. The more intensely we feel happiness, the more subject we are to melancholy. Unless we immerse ourselves in process (which I have also called flux and change), our sensitivity to life and our ability to experience life fully will be deadened.

source:academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu

[Angel]

Ode on Melancholy

An Analysis

Much of the effectiveness of this poem derives from the concrete imagery. Throughout the poem, Keats yokes or joins elements which are ordinarily regarded as incompatible or as opposites. How is this technique appropriate for the theme of this poem? How, in fact, does this technique illustrate that theme?

Stanza I

The poet's passionate outcry not to reject melancholy is presented negatively--"no," "not," "neither," "nor." Moreover, three of the first four words of the poem are negative. The poet is using grammar to parallel his meaning and thereby reinforce it. The first two words, "No, no," are both accented, emphasizing them; their forcefulness expresses convincingly the speaker's passionate state. The degree of pain that melancholy may cause is implied by the "remedies" or ways to avoid it, oblivion and death (i.e., Lethe and poisons).

With the last two lines of the stanza, Keats specifies the consequences of seeking escape from pain--a deadening ("drowning") of the soul or consciousness. The anguish is "wakeful," because the sufferer still feels and so still has the capacity to experience joy, though this fact will not become clear till later in the poem.

Stanza II

The possible intensity, unpredictability, and inescapableness of melancholy is suggested by "fit." Think of your associations with this word.

Since he uses a rain image, "heaven" as the source of melancholy is natural, but doesn't heaven have other meanings or associations? Could Keats be saying something else about melancholy here? Is there an anticipation of melancholy as a goddess in stanza III? Is there irony ?

Lines 1-4 describe the physical circumstances literally and the emotional circumstances figuratively. The clouds are "weeping," an appropriate action for melancholy. But is it surprising, even startling perhaps, to find that these weeping clouds (a negative image) "foster" (or nurture) the flower? Doesn't the reference to flowers call up positive images? However, the flowers are"droop-headed," a phrase having a double application. (1) On a literal level, the rain has caused them to droop. (2) On a figurative level, "droop-headed" connotes sadness, grief. The flowers are more specifically described in lines 5 and 7. The rain temporarily hides the view or hill (remember all these nature images are descriptions of melancholy); however the hill is green, connoting fertility, lushness, beauty, aliveness, and it retains these qualities whether we can see them at a particular moment or not. The rain which cuts visibility is called a "shroud," an obvious death reference, but the month is April, a time when nature renews itself, comes alive after winter's barrenness and harshness. Is there a suggestion that melancholy is or may be fruitful?

The rest of the stanza advises what to do in these circumstances: enjoy as fully as possible the beauties of this world and thereby welcome melancholy. To "glut" sorrow is to gorge or to experience to the fullest. The rose is beautiful, but as a "morning" rose it lasts a short time, i.e., the experience is transitory. Similarly the rainbow produced by the wave is beautiful and shortlived (think about how long a wave lasts) Is it relevant that waves keep coming? The beauty of the peonies ("globed" describes their round shape) is "wealth"; is "wealth" a positive or a negative value here?

The last four lines turn from nature to people. The imagery of wealth (her anger is "rich") and eating intently ("feed deep") tie the natural and the human worlds and the two divisions of the stanza together. The words "glut," "feed deep," and "Emprison" imply passionate involvement in experience; also the eating imagery suggests that melancholy is incorporated into, becomes part of and nourishes the individual. The food imagery is continued in stanza III. The lover, while the object of her angry raving, also enjoys her beauty ("peerless eyes").

Stanza III

It is important to recognize that "She" refers both to the beloved of stanza II and to melancholy. Lines 1-3 explain the basis for the advice of stanza II; beauty dies, joy is brief (while we are experiencing joy, it is saying goodbye to us), and pleasure is painful ("aching pleasure" is a characteristic Keatsian oxymoron). Line 4 offers a specific example of the abstractions of lines 1-3; as the bee sips nectar (a pleasurable activity), the nectar turns to poison. Having shown the inextricably mixed nature of life, Keats moves on to talk about melancholy explicitly.

Where can melancholy be found? As has been implied, it is found in pleasure, in delight. Melancholy is "Veil'd" because it is hidden from us during pleasure, which is generally what we are aware of and are absorbed in. However there are those who see melancholy-in-delight. They live intensely, vigorously; the language reflects their exuberance and power, "strenuous" and "burst." Their sensitivity to life is of the highest quality, "palate fine."

In the end of this poem, we see the reward of the "wakeful anguish of the soul" of stanza I. The possessor of the wakeful soul shall taste melancholy's sadness (note the synaesthesia of tasting a feeling). The change of tense, from present pleasure to future melancholy, expresses their relationship--one is part of and inevitably follows the other. Keats concludes that the wakeful soul will be the "trophy" or prize gained or won from melancholy. Trophy is described as "cloudy," which has negative overtones. Does this negative touch suggest any ambivalence on the poet's part? or is it the an absolute statement of the inextricably mixed nature of pleasure and melancholy?
Another way of asking this question: is Keats's affirming, without any qualifications, doubt, or hesitation, the inseparable nature of opposites in life?

source:academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu

[l3lack-light]

Thanks for posting this lovely poem.
Can the beloved in the last three lines of the second stanza, be a reference to the melancholy too?
I mean, the mistress is a human beloved, but at the same time, it's the melancholy which has been personified and is showing bitterness and anger.
AND, I don't understand what this part of the poem mean: "aching pleasure nigh..."
I don't understand the function of the word "nigh".

[Angel]

Hi.

Yes, Melancholy is a metaphor of the reader's mistress. Actually an enraged mistress to whom one should treat gently.

AND, "aching pleasure", is an oxymoron expressing one of Keats' favourite themes. In fact, Keats broods over beauty and joy, with full realization of the pain that their disappearance will bring. He plunges fully into life to gain the fullest humanity's joy, and accepts pain as the necessary consequence of joy.

The word "nigh" functions as the verb of that clause and means "to come near."

Good Luck!