Ode To Nightingale解析

ode to a nightingale中英对照"Ode to a Nightingale" is one of the most celebrated poems written by John Keats. Through this ode, Keats explores the themes of nature, mortality, and the transformative power of art. Below is a Chinese-English comparison of some key aspects and interpretations of the poem.1. Theme of Nature:In the poem, Keats is captivated by the nightingale's song and its connection to the natural world. He feels a deep appreciation for the beauty of nature and seeks to escape the troubles of life through an immersion in its sights and sounds.Chinese: 《莺啼赋》中，济慈被夜莺的歌声所吸引，并感受到它与自然界的联系。

他对自然的美感到无比赞叹，试图通过沉浸在自然景观的声色中来逃离生活中的烦恼。

2. Mortality and Transience:Keats reflects upon the transient nature of life, symbolized by the fleeting song of the nightingale. He longingly considers the bird's timeless existence and ponders the brevity of human life. This exploration of mortality serves as a reminder of the ephemeral nature of existence.Chinese: 济慈反思了生命的短暂性，以夜莺歌声瞬间即逝为象征。

致云雀英语原文注释《致云雀》是一首著名的英语诗歌，也被称为《致雀鸟》或《鸟儿之歌》，由英国诗人约翰·基茨（John Keats）创作于1819年。

这首诗以优美的语言和丰富的意象表达了诗人对自由、美丽和逝去的渴望。

下面是《致云雀》的原文注释：Ode to a Nightingale.My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains.My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,。

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains.One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,。

But being too happy in thine happiness,—。

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees.In some melodious plot.Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,。

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.1. "Ode to a Nightingale"，这是诗歌的标题，直译为《致云雀》。

2. "My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains"，我的心痛，一种昏昏欲睡的麻木感折磨着我。

3. "My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk"，我的感觉，仿佛我喝了毒芹汁。

4. "Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains"，或者将某种乏味的麻醉剂排空到下水道。

约翰济慈明诗《夜莺颂》欣赏[摘要]约翰济慈(John Keats)是十九世纪英国浪漫主义时期的杰出诗人。

他的名作《夜莺颂》(ode tonightingale)是作者创造力最旺盛年代的作品，同时又由于作者身患绝症，自觉不久于人世而创作的，因此诗歌里渗透着对青春的渴望和对死亡的恐惧心理。

[关健词]浪漫主义济慈夜莺颂在诗歌的第一节里，诗人主要描写夜莺的歌声给诗人带到了飘飘欲仙的忘我境界，在艰难的现实生活里，诗人感到无情命运对其压迫产生的饿痛楚：My heart aches，and a drowsy numbness painMv sense，as though of hemlock I had drunk诗人的心里痛苦，困顿麻木，就象吃了鸦片一样，但是痛苦带来的麻木又使诗人感到一丝慰藉：Or emptied some dull opiate to the drainsOne minute past，and Lethe-wards had sunk；列撕忘川是哈帝斯冥城里的一条让人忘记过去的河流。

作者通过引用这日引吭高歌，并且这种欢快的声音在某种程度上引起诗人的嫉妒：This not through envy of the happy lot,But being too happy in thine happiness在第一节诗里’作者先用现实生活带来的饿痛苦感受来引出夜莺快乐的情感，这种矛盾修饰辞法(paradox)大大加强了诗歌的戏剧效果，让人更感受到夜莺歌声的魅力，从而自然引出了夜莺歌声而产生的快乐意境。

在第二节里，诗人通过运用了通感修辞手法(synesthesia)把夜莺的歌声比作温酿可口的清醇的葡萄酒葡萄酒产生于法国南部的普鲁旺斯省(Provencal)这一带地区气候温暖湿润，阳光明媚，是一处宜人可爱的地方一樽珍藏在地窖多年的美酒就更加清醇可口了，在这里，诗人联想力得到了极大的发挥：听着夜莺的歌声就象喝下了清醇的美酒。

IntroductionThe names Wordsworth and Keats are to a certain extent tantamount to Romanticism, especially from the perspective of modern academics.John Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale" and William Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud" seem to have been written with the intention of describing a moment in one's life, like that of the fleeting tune of a nightingale or the discovery of a field of daffodils by a lake. Within each of these moments a multitude of emotions are established, with each morphing from one to another very subtly. What are also more subtle about these two poems are their differences. While they do touch on very similar topics, the objects used to personify Keats' ideas on death and immortality differs from Wordsworth's ideas on an inherent unity between man and nature. Thus, the ideas represented by them do diverge at different points in the poems as well.Comparison of John Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale" and William Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud"JohnKeats uses this beauty to create a central theme in one of his prominent poems, "Ode to a Nightingale". The beauty in "Ode to a Nightingale" is that of the Nightingale's song. The beautiful song of the nightingale is reminding the poet of his own mortality by singing to his senses. It is the beauty that he sees in the world which makes it apparent that society is destined to perish and die. Keats shows the deepest expression of human mortality in this poem as he discusses the relationship to mature age and how it compares to the fluid song of the Nightingale. The man in the poem longs to flee from the world he lives and join the bird in its world.Keats's symbolism of the Nightingale and the contrast between life and death reveals his changing view of life resulting in the belief of death being his means to overcome pain. Keats begins this revelation by describing the beauty of life, but his use of fantasy words foreshadows a change in his outlook. By using the symbolism of the nightingale, Keats becomes uncertain of his view of life and begins to ponder theconcept of death. In the conclusion, Keats feels deceived by the nightingale's representation of life, and desires death to overcome his pain instead of enduring it in life.As Keats continues his thoughts, he becomes more and more skeptical of life. Fascinated by the nightingale, Keats recognizes the bird's innocence: "What thou among the leaves hast never known, /The weariness, The fever, and the fret". One would fret when uneasy or uncertain towards a matter. Keats reveals that the nightingale is oblivious to the concept of death as it sings its melody. The nightingale is completely free for it does not know about death. Keats becomes tormented by the innocence and freedom of the bird, as all of Keats' uncertainties regarding life and death overwhelm him: "Where but to think is to be full of sorrow". Living his life brings a constant reminder of his pain, driving Keats to change his opinion of life and death.Similarly, as a great poet of nature, William Wordsworth wrote many famous poems to express his love for nature, one of which is "I wandered lonely as a cloud". In the narrative poem, the poet successfully compared his loneliness with the happy and vital daffodils. The daffodils, the symbol of the nature, bring great joy and relief to the speaker. So Wordsworth's conception of nature is that nature has a lot to do with man, it can not only refresh one's soul and fill one with happiness, but it can also be reduced into a beautiful memory which will comfort one's heart when in solitude.I chose the poem "I wandered lonely as a cloud" by William Wordsworth because I like the imagery in it of dancing daffodils. Upon closer examination, I realized that most of this imagery is created by the many metaphors and similes Wordsworth uses. In the first line, Wordsworth says "I wandered lonely as a cloud". This is a simile comparing the wondering of a man to a cloud drifting through the sky.I suppose the wandering cloud is lonely because there is nothing up there that high in the sky besides it. It can pass by unnoticed, touching nothing. Also, the image of a cloud brings to mind a light, carefree sort of wandering. The cloud is not bound by any obstacle, but can go wherever the whim of the wind takes it.This simple poem, one of the loveliest and most famous in the Wordsworthcanon, revisits the familiar subjects of nature and memory, this time with a particularly (simple) spare, musical eloquence. The plot is extremely simple, depicting the poet's wandering and his discovery of a field of daffodils by a lake, the memory of which pleases him and comforts him when he is lonely, bored, or restless. Romantic poet William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" extols the virtue of nature and highlights the value of participating in its beauty.ConclusionIn "Ode to a Nightingale" and" I wandered lonely as a cloud ", both poems tells of an experience in which the human characters encounters nature in the poems, and the experiences are handled quite differently in the two poems. Natures have always held significance in human lives. They achieved heights unattainable to humans and sung while they did that. These two poets use nature as their muse and also symbolically for the human experience. The two poems, "Ode to a Nightingale" and "I wandered lonely as a cloud", clearly portray both of the poets' treatment on the idea of escape.Both poems construct vivid illusions but insist on their desolating failure. The poems do seem similar in several ways because in both, Keats and Wordsworth do portray symbols of realism while depicting the nature, as well as the spectrum of emotions from grief to joy. The central themes of the two poems are neither a nightingale nor a daffodil, but, the poets' eternal search for a center of refuge in a world of flux. It is through such a conception that Keats and Wordsworth sets to resolve the dichotomy between the world of the ideal and that of reality within the order of experience.Reference[1]Plumly, Stanley.: "The immortal evening: a legendary dinner with Keats, Wordsworth, and Lamb." New Y ork; London: Norton, 2014. pp. 368. (2014)[2]Lau, Beth.: review of Stillinger, Jack. "Romantic complexity: Keats, Coleridge, and Wordsworth." Studies in Romanticism (47:3) 2008, 420-5. (2008)[3]Horrell, William C.: review of Milnes, Tim. "The truth about Romanticism: pragmatism and idealism in Keats, Shelley,Wordsworth and Coleridge."Wordsworth Circle (42:4) 2011, 266-9. (2011)[4]Burkett, Andrew.: review of Roe, Nicholas. "John Keats: a new life." Studies in Romanticism (54:1) 2015, 138-42. (2015)[5]Michael, Timothy.: review of Milnes, Tim. "The truth about Romanticism: pragmatism and idealism in Keats, Shelley, Coleridge." Romanticism (19:1) 2013, 101-3. (2013)[6]Scott, Matthew.: "Wordsworth among the Romantics." In (pp. 749-66) Gravil, Richard; Robinson, Daniel (eds). The Oxford handbook of William Wordsworth. Oxford; New Y ork: [2015:458328]. (2015)[7] Wu, Duncan.: "Wordsworth and sensibility." In (pp. 467-81) Gravil, Richard; Robinson, Daniel (eds). The Oxford handbook of William Wordsworth. Oxford; New Y ork [2015:458328]. (2015)。

ode to a nightingale《夜莺颂》John Keats 约翰·济慈Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!No hungry generations tread thee down;The voice I hear this passing night was heardIn ancient days by emperor and clown:Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn;The same that oft-times hathCharmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.在失掉了的仙域里引动窗扉饿的世代无法将你蹂躏永生的鸟,你不会死去今夜,我偶然听到的歌曲当使古代的帝王和村夫喜悦或许这同样的歌也曾激荡露丝忧郁的心,使她不禁落泪站在异邦的谷田里想著家就是这声音常常一个美女望著大海险恶的浪花1.Thou wast not born for death, immortal B ird! A2.No hungry generations tread thee d own; b3.The voice I hear this passing night was h eard a4.In ancient days by emperor and cl own: b5.Perhaps the self-same song that found a p ath c6.Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, d7.She stood in tears amid the alien corn; e8.The same that oft-times h ath c9.Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam d10.Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. eThou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!No hungry generations tread thee down;The voice I hear this passing night was heardIn ancient days by emperor and clown:Perhaps the self-same song that found a pathThrough the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,She stood in tears amid the alien corn;The same that oft-times hathCharmed magic casements, opening on the foamOf perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.7Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! 永生的鸟,你不会死去wast：古代用法，be的第二人称单数过去式。

1，什么叫文艺复兴The Renaissance (“rebirth” in French) was a cultural and intellectural movement that spanned roughly the 14th through the 17 century, beginning in Italy and later spreading to the rest of Europe 2，Renaissance is considered as the great flowering of art, architecture, politics, and the study of literature, and is also usually seen as the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern world.2，什么叫玄学派诗歌the Metaphysical school of poetryI. Definition: A school of highly intellectual（智力的）poetryTime: the early 17th centuryMajor features: mysticism in content and fantasticality in form; peculiar conceit（奇思妙想）, unique way of reasoning and comparisonMain themes: life, death, love, religion, universeRepresentatives: John Donne, Andrew Marvell and George HerbertSignificance: greatly influenced the modernists of the 20th centuryII. Metaphysical conceits悬想比喻，奇喻，别出心裁的比喻Conceit: an elaborate metaphor that offers a surprising or unexpected comparison between two seemingly highly dissimilar things. This can involve original images or familiar images used in an unfamiliar way.Literature in This Age: The 18th century marked the beginning of an intellectual movement throughout in Europe known as Enlightenment. It was a progressive intellectual movement throughout Western Europe in the 18th century and Russia in the 19th Century.In late 17th and early 18th century England, there was a change of taste, which was part of a general movement in Europe, seen perhaps most impressive in 17th century France. The dominant literary theory of this period was “Neoclassicism”.Literary Genre文学流派Generally speaking, literature of the 18th century was very complex. We may classify it under three general heads: the reign of classicism, the pre-romantic poetry, and the beginning of modern novel.3，什么是启蒙运动Enlightenment (1) a progressive intellectual movement(2) flourished in France and swept through the whole Western Europe(3) aims at enlightening the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas; celebrated reason (4) called for a reference to order, reason and rules4，什么是前浪漫主义Pre-RomanticismWhen did Pre-romanticism appear? in the latter half of the 18th centuryWhat are the major features of Pre-romanticism?1)Romantic Revival;2)Strong protest against the bondage ofClassicism; 3)Claims of passion and emotion;4)Renewed interests in medievalliterature.Who are the representatives? William Blake and Robert BurnsWhat’s the significance?marked the decline of classicismPaved the way for the coming of romanticism in England5，什么叫Byron hero: Byronic hero was created by Byron in the Romantic period of the English literature. Such a hero is a proud, rebellious figure of noble origin. Passionate and powerful, he is to right all the wrongs in a corrupt society, and he would fight single-handedly against all the misdoings. These heroes rise against tyranny and injustice, but they are merely lone fighters striving for personal freedom and some individualistic ends.1. epic 史诗a long narrative poem, grand in style, about heroes and heroic deeds, embodying heroic ideals of a nation or race in the making. Beowulf is the English national epic that was passed from mouth to mouth and written down by many unknown hands.3. alliteration 头韵the repetition of the same sound or sounds at the beginning of two or more words that are close to each other. It is a feature of Beowulf and other Old English poems.4. alliterative verse 头韵诗poetry written in alliteration. Nearly all Old English verse, including Beowulf, is heavily alliterative, and the pattern is fairly standard – with either two or three stressed syllables in each line alliterating.5. kenning 隐喻语a metaphor usually composed of two words and used for description and association. Beowulf is full of kennings, such as ―helmet bearer‖ for ―warrior‖ and ―swan road‖ for ―sea‖.8. romance 传奇a type of literature that was popular in the Middle Ages, usually containing adventures and reflecting the spirit of chivalry. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was a great verse romance, but its author remains unknown.11. heroic couplet 英雄双韵体two successive lines of rhymed poetry in iambic pentameter. Geoffrey Chaucer’s masterpiece The Canterbury Tale was written in heroic couplet.12. ballad meter 民谣体traditionally a four-line stanza containing alternating four-stress and three-stress lines, usually with a refrain and the rhyme scheme of abcb. Robert Burns’ ―A Red, Red Rose‖ is a great love ballad.14. English Renaissance 英国文艺复兴the literary flowering of England in the late 16th century and early 17th century, with humanism as its keynote. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is considered the summit of this renaissance. 15. Elizabethan literature 伊丽莎白时代的文学literature written in the Elizabethan Age (1558-1603). William Shakespea re’s Romeo and Juliet was a masterpiece of this period.16. sonnet 十四行诗a fixed form consisting of fourteen lines of 5-foot iambic verse. It first flourished in Italy in the 14th century. William Shakespeare was a great English sonnet writer famous for his 154 sonnets.20. rhyme scheme 押韵格式the pattern of end-thymes in a stanza or poem, generally described by using letters of the alphabet to denote the recurrence of rhyming lines. For example, heroic couplets are ―aabbcc‖ and so on.21. quatrain 四行诗节a stanza of four lines, rhymed or unrhymed. It is the commonest of all stanzaic forms in English poetry. Robert Burns’ ―A Red, Red Rose‖ has four quatrains.24. verse drama 诗剧drama written in the form of verse. It was most widely used in the Elizabethan Age. William Shakespeare’s dramas are all verse dramas, Hamlet being the most famous.25. blank verse 无韵诗，素体诗unrhymed iambic pentameter, the most widely used of English verse forms and usually used in English dramatic and epic poetry. William Shakespea re’s play Hamlet is written in blank verse.27. essay 散文a composition, usually in prose, which may be of only a few hundred words or of book length and which discusses, formally or informally, a topic or a variety of topics. It is one of the most flexib le and adaptable of all literary forms. Francis Bacon is a great essayist; his ―Of Studies‖ isa model of good essay.28. English Romanticism 英国浪漫主义a literary movement that aimed at free expression of the writer’s ideas and feelings and flourished in the early 19th century England. A great representative of this movement is Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author of ―Ode to the West Wind‖.Sonnet 18One of the best known of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Sonnet 18 is memorable for the skillful and varied presentatio n of subject matter, in which the poet’s feelings reach a level of rapture unseen in the previous sonnets. The poet here abandons his quest for the youth to have a child, and instead glories in the youth’s beauty.Initially, the poet poses a question—‖Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?‖—and then reflects on it, remarking that the youth’s beauty far surpasses summer’s delights. The imagery is the very essence of simplicity: ―wind‖ and ―buds.‖ In the fourth line, legal terminology—‖summer’s lease‖—is introduced in contrast to the commonplace images in the first three lines. Note also the poet’s use of extremes in the phrases ―more lovely,‖ ―all too short,‖ and ―too hot‖; these phrases emphasize the young man’s beauty.Although lines 9 through 12 are marked by a more expansive tone and deeper feeling, the poet returns to the simplicity of the opening images. As one expects in Shakespeare’s sonnets, the proposition that the poet sets up in the first eight lines—that all nature is subject to imperfection—is now contrasted in these next four lines beginning with ―But.‖ Although beauty naturally declines at some point—‖And every fair from fair sometime declines‖—the youth’s beauty will not; his unchanging appearance is atypical of nature’s steady progression. Even death is impotent against the youth’s beauty. Note the ambiguity in the phrase ―eternal lines‖: Are these ―lines‖ the poet’s ver ses or the youth’s hoped-for children? Or are they simply wrinkles meant to represent the process of aging? Whatever the answer, the poet is jubilant in this sonnet because nothing threatens the young man’s beautiful appearance.Then follows the concludi ng couplet: ―So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.‖ The poet is describing not what the youth is but what he will be ages hence, as captured in the poet’s eternal verse—or again, in a hoped-for child. Whatever one may feel about the sentiment expressed in the sonnet and especially in these last two lines, one cannot help but notice an abrupt change in the poet’s own estimate of his poetic writing. Following the poet’s disparaging reference to his ―pupil pen‖ and ―barren rhyme‖ in Sonnet 16, it comes as a surprise in Sonnet 18 to find him boasting that his poetry will be eternal.John Keats认为，夜莺的歌声是美妙绝伦的，是不朽的，是永恒的，将世世代代的唱下去。

摘要每首诗歌都有它独特的形式和元素，这些元素包括：韵律、语调、意象和主题。

就本质上说，“意象”一词是属于诗歌的，意象就是诗歌的灵魂，因此，意象在读者理解诗歌的过程中扮演着重要角色。

英国浪漫主义诗歌中的意象表现极其丰富，其中最常见的是“夜莺”意象。

本文首先介绍意象的概念、分类及它在诗歌中的重要作用，其次根据几位英国浪漫主义诗人的代表诗作对诗歌中所含有的夜莺意象进行大致归类，再次结合几位代表诗人各自的生活背景及成长经历比较分析英诗中的夜莺意象的异同点，最后总结夜莺意象在英国浪漫主义时期下的成因及意义。

关键词：英国浪漫主义诗歌；夜莺；意象ABSTRACTPoetry has its unique form and elements. These elements include rhyme, tone, image and theme. And in essence, image is the soul of poetry, so it plays an important role in understanding the poetry. The images in English Romantic poetry perform a very rich forms, the most common image is the ―Nightingale‖ image.This paper first introduces the definition and classification and the importance of image in poetry. Second comes up with three types of nightingale images after analyzes some major Romantic poets‘poems. Third combines the background and their life experience of poets with their nightingale images, comes to summarize the similarities and differences of nightingale images in poems. Last, points out the causes and significance of nightingale image under that historical background.Key words：English Romantic poetry; Nightingale; imageContents1．Introduction (51)2. The image in poetry (52)2.1 The definition and classification of Image (52)2.2 The function of poetic Image (53)3. Three types of Nightingale image (55)3.1 Nightingale of myth-based (56)3.2 Description on nightingale‘s life habits (57)3.3 Expression of inner feelings (58)4. The Nightingale and Romantic poets (60)4.1 William Wordsworth‘s To a Skylark--the sad and disparaging nightingale (60)4.2 John Keats‘ Ode to a Nightingale--the happy and sad nightingale (61)5．The historical reasons of Nightingale image (65)6．Conclusion (66)Acknowledgements (67)References (68)1．IntroductionPoetic image is the factor and soul of poetry [1]1. English romantic poets tend to be the creator of the poetic images. They use their symbolic imagery to express, while the image is a typical product of the Romantic imagination and creativity. Actually, the process of creating a poem is a kind of process in which the poet will select suitable concrete objects to be the poetic images, and construct the poetic image to express his subjective feelings. Lots of critics have made fruitful research on the images of the English romantic poetry: the moon, the lark, and the nightingale. Rich images have been represented in English Romantic poetry, in which the most seen are birds, especially skylark and nightingale, which are vividly and profoundly depicted [2]55. However, there are still some problems or insufficiencies in the research. The scholars used to display all the poems of English poets, rather than only confined to the English Romanticism period. Some others only represented two books which written about nightingale of two poets and compared them to each other. Also, most scholars tended to explain how many kinds of images that English romantic poets had used in their poems, and nearly just focused on researching the nightingale image. This thesis comes up with three types of nightingale images after analyzing several famous Romantic poems, and summarizes the similarities and differences of nightingale images in different poet‘s poem. At last, points out the causes and significance of nightingale image under that historical background.2. The image in poetryIn the world of poetry theory, people widely accepted the significance and constructive ability of image. The concrete image that can be felt produces the meaning and whole aesthetic effect of poetry. This special ability of image comes from the image‘s unique nature and function. The funct ion of image completes the expression of the whole meaning of poetry. The image has the function of description, expression, symbolic signification [3]116. In the system of image, every image not only influences other images but also be influenced.2.1 The definition and classification of Image2.1.1 The definition of ImageThe image first appeared in classical Chinese bible Yi Jing more than two thousand years ago. ―Books cannot represent thoroughly what we want to say and words cannot express completely what we want to say,‖ and ―The saint created image to imply what he wants to say and to express to the world.‖ [4]1. And the word ―image‖ derives from old French image or Latin word imaginem. It appears in Middle English and then rises up as a popular jargon of advertising and public relations.However, until now, there isn‘t an exact definition of image. There only some basic definitions in dictionaries.(1)A physical likeness or representation of a person, an animal, or an object photographed, painted, sculptured, or otherwise made visible.(2)An optical counterpart or appearance of an object, as is produced by reflection from a mirror, refraction by a lens, or the passage of luminous rays through a small aperture and their reception on a surface.(3)A mental representation; idea; conception.(4)Psychology. A mental representation of something previously perceived, in the absence of the original stimulus.(5)A description of something in speech or writing.(6)Rhetoric. A figure of speech, esp. a metaphor or a simile.And according to these definitions, philosophers and poets draw the conclusions that image has deep relation to our sight first, then has deep relation to our mind and psyche, and the last to writing and rhetoric.Ezra Pound definite image as ―An image is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant time.‖ [5]85So we can find that images consist of two parts: one is the emotion of the writers, and the other one is an object or a scene. Readers can understand the poet‘s emotion throug h the image that poet has produced.2.1.2 The classification of ImageThe poetic images have been divided into farewell image, homesickness image, sadness image, emotion image, love image, war image and leisure image in the past. Or on the other hand, they maybe classified into single image, compound image, and overlapping image. But these ways of classification are not effective enough to help readers to understand poems through the poetic images.A poetic image can be seen as a cognitive structure, and so it can be inferred that it relates to the mind first, and that human beings perceive the world with the aid of their senses, which are sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing, and action [4]17. And the six senses respond to imaginative are visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and kinesthetic.So image in poetry can be divided into six categories. They are visual image, gustatory image, tactile image, auditory image, kinesthetic image, and olfactory image. Some poets use one sole image in their poems. For example, John Keats‘ To Autumn, the line ―Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn‖ [6]89 is an auditory image. However, most poets turn like to use more than two images in the same poem.2.2 The function of poetic ImageAs image is the soul of poetry, the combined function of image completes the expression of the whole meaning of poetry. The poetic image is of object-describing function, emotion-describing function and aesthetic function [1]. They can be explained as following:(1) Example. An image can be used to show what an idea might look like. It may be used to illustrate a concept that is being described of which the poet wants to tell others. This is object describing function.(2) Expression. An image can be used to add new information or express the poet‘s feeling and attitude. Poet may display his ideas or feelings or even make an ironic or emotional comment on something. This refers to emotion describing function.(3) Effects. An image can be used just to describe a beautiful or special scene in pets‘mind, no matter what the image is, it works out an aesthetic function.3. Three types of Nightingale imageIn the world, among all the animals perhaps the nightingale is the most familiar to English poets. In the western literary history, the poems about Nightingale are abundant, especially in English Romanticism poetry. Whether it is The Poetry Treasury or Norton Anthology of English Literature[7]61, there is a collection of a large number of the nightingale images in the poetry.The nightingale is a kind of European warbler of which songs are trilling, sweetly, and magnificent. The nightingale often gives people a sense of painful, because of its plaintive songs. And this is the image characterization of ―nightingale‖. The formation of this characterization is the Greek and Roman mythology.Nightingale image as the source of the ancient Greek and Roman mythology provides rich imagination for the British and American writers. In ancient poetry, the nightingale is used to be personified as a woman singer, and the identification of the nightingale with the female gender has been stable throughout literary history. From Homer and Aeschylus through Sappho and Virgil, all the way to Milton and Keats [8]34, the nightingale has been personified as a beautiful, sad, and full of attraction female presence. After hearing the pathetically chirping sound of the nightingale, writers reconstructed the ancient legends and legendary characters, and expressed their ideal life, and seek the true love.W illiam Blake‘s Songs of Innocence,John Keats‘s Ode to a Nightingale, and William Wordsworth‘s To a Skylark and so forth, English romantic poets have created different nightingale images in their poems. In these poems, nightingales contain different meanings and express the different feelings of poets.In terms of content, the poems can be divided into the following situations: First, some poets wrote nightingale based on its old myth; second, a part of poems focused on the description of nightingale‘s life habits; third, the nightingale image contained the poets own feelings, maybe happy or unhappy.3.1 Nightingale of myth-basedOne of Nightingale‘s beautiful and sad myths and legends comes from Ovid‘s book The Metamorphoses,Book 4 [7]61.In the ancient Greek, there was a King Pandion, he had two beautiful daughters named Procne and Philomela. Once the country was attacked by another country, at that time, the King of Thrace Tereus led his troops and came to help them. In order to thank Tereus, Athens determined to give his older daughter Procne to him. A few months later, Procne gave birth to a son, called Itylus. As Procne missed her sister very much, she asked Tereus to take her sister to Thrace. In his way home, Tereus found Philomela was quite delicate and beautiful, and therefore commit a rape on her. Then he cut off her tongue, and put her imprisoned in a poor small room in a forest. When he went back to Thrace, he lied to his wife that Philomela was dead. However Philomela spent in the prisoner for one year, she had never lost the determination of revenge. She wove her suffering into a blanket, trying to tell it to her sister. After Procne came to the forest, she realized everything and rescued her sister. Two sisters, then plan the revenge, and killed the little prince Itylus and made its meat dishes to the king. After the king knowing the truth, he wanted to kill the two sisters. At that moment, the forest gods appeared, and made them turn into three birds: Philomela turned into a nightingale, Procne turned into a swallow, and Tereus became a kind of bird called the hoopoe. From then on, every night in the ancient forests there will have the miserable ―Teru-Teru-‖ sounds, the ancient Greek poet thought it was Philomela that calling Tereus‘s name, telling her sad story. The song of the nightingale has been regarded as an expression of Philomela‘s sad plight.The sad legend deeply rooted in the cultural of the West. Now, the nightingale is associated with Philomela, and the burden of her song is her loss of voice, and her cruel betrayal by a man. A nd the word ―Philomela‖ itself now has a new meaning, means ―sad love song s‖. It often appears in Romantic poetry is more than a literary motif, and it is a migratory old world bird of the thrush family, renowned for its remarkable singing. It is the sad legend ofnightingale and the plaintive sound that inspired the poets and made it the most often seen image in their works.Geoffrey Hartman, in Evening Star and Evening Land, one of the best essays ever written on the nightingale, described the ―philomel moment‖ in English poetry as ―the post-prophetic moment, when the theme of loss merges with that of voice –when, in fact, a ‗lost voice‘ becomes the subject or moving force of poetic song‖ [9]35. What‘s missing in Hartman‘s argument is the positive range of emotion the nightingale calls forth. Throughout literary history, the nightingale always means loss and recompense. Sappho, in one of his poetic fragment, evokes the nightingale‘s joyful aspect, calling it ―the massager of spring, the sweet voiced nightingale.‖[10]Especially in Romantic poetry, the nightingale implies not only heartache and the grief, but also renewed vitality; not only autumnal melancholy, but also springtime rejoicing.In the 19th century, English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne described nightingale in his poems Itylus as the incarnation of Philomela. In the all ten stanzas, the first seven stanzas are all opened with ―O swallow, sister‖ or ―Sister, my sister‖, and at the beginning of the eighth stanza it turns into ―O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow‖, these words showed Philomela‘s dissatisfaction towards her swallow sister. This poem is just writing upon nightingale‘s myths and legends.3.2 Description on n ightingale’s life habi tsNightingales appear so often in English and European poems that their associations of sweetness and romance have sunk to the level of banality. Because of this, attempts are rarely made to see any further relevance in the use of the bird.According to Encyclopedia Curley, nightingale is an old kind of bird, with reddish-brown coloring on the upper body, and grayish-brown below. It lives in Europe, and migrates to Africa for the winter. It is known for its pleasant voice. It is usually hidden in dense bush in order to catch insects for its food. However, nightingale is timid by nature, so it often appears in the night and people can only heard its singing in the daytime. These habits of nightingale have been turned into immortal verse in the British Roman tic poet Clare‘s poem TheNightingale’s Nest.And watched her while she sung; and her renownHath made me marvel that so famed a birdShould have no better dress than russet brown.Her wings would tremble in her ecstasy,And feathers stand on end, as ‘twe re with joy,And mouth wide open to release her heartOf its out-sobbing songs. (LL19-25). . .But if I touch a bush, or scarcely stirred,All in a moment stopt. I watched in vain;The timid bird had left the hazel bush,And at a distance hid to sing again. (LL28-31)[11]In this poem, the life habits and behavior of nightingale is quite obvious. In the first three lines, poet describes nightingale‘s feather and the brown color. Then Clare writes about the nightingale‘s w ings, mouth and its songs. In the last four lines, Clare tells us the timid nature of nightingale.His poems undergo a major reevaluation in the late 20th century and he is now often considered to be the most important poet among all the 19th-century poet s. Also, Jonathan Bate states that Clare was ―the greatest laboring-class poet that England has ever produced, no one has ever written more powerfully of nature‖ [12].3.3 Expression of inner feelingsMost poets compared nightingale to their real life and misfortune in order to use nightingale images in their poems, such as R. Barnefield‘s The Nightingale, W. Cowper‘s To the Nightingale, and Keats‘s Ode to a Nightingale; or some poets expressed their own opinions and views about the world and art through the mouth of the Nightingale, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge‘s The Nightingale.Samuel Taylor Coleridge goes on to articulate a new and distinctivelyRomantic approach to the representation of nature in poetry. According to Coleridge, nature and the real world are almost the same. It is not enough for the poet to be a detached observer of picturesque scenery [8]. In his poem The Nightingale, Coleridge tries to address the correlation between human consciousness and the natural world or between the material and spiritual world. When Milton addressed the nightingale like the most musical and melancholy bird, Coleridge said:A melancholy bird? Oh! Idle thought!In Nature there is nothing melancholy. (L14-15) [13]Coleridge rescued from nightingale mythic associations of mindless melancholy, and presented a flock of real birds that inhabit a real English grove in early springtime.But never elsewhere in one place I knewSo many nightingales; and far and near,In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,They answer and provoke each other‘s song,With skirmish and capricious passagings,And murmurs musical and swift jug jug,And one low piping sound more sweet than allStirring the air with such a harmony,That should you close your eyes, you might almostForget it was not day! (L55-64) [13]He stresses the division between his own mind and the beauty of the natural world. To Coleridge, the nightingale is a singer or fellow-poet whose voice embodied the powerful, transformative emotions of joy and love. The mind, to Coleridge, cannot take its feeling from nature and cannot falsely imbue nature with its own feeling; rather, the mind must be so suffused with its own joy that it opens up to the real, independent, ―immortal‖ joy of nature.4. The Nightingale and Romantic poetsEnglish romantic poets were the creators of the poetic images. They use their symbolic imagery to express, while the image is a typical product of the Romantic imagination and creativity. Nightingale was the most seen image in poems, the reason was the Romantic poets‘ interests in it. In English Romantic poetry, the image of nightingale is multifaceted, a symbol of happiness as well as sorrow, can be disparaging or respecting, while the image of skylark is always one and the same, a symbol of freedom and exhilaration.4.1 William Wordsworth’s To a Skylark--the sad and disparaging nightingaleWilliam Wordsworth was one of the romantic Lake Poets. He grew up in a rustic society, and spent a great deal of his time playing outdoors, in what he would later remember as a pure communion with nature.For Wordsworth, poetry is a natural expression of one‘s inner feelings, the emotional heart filled only to achievement good poetry; the other hand, ideology is also an important factor in poetry, W ordsworth instinctively reject ―frivolous but shallow thinking and language‖[14]6. Wordsworth‘s best poetry gives expression to objective truth about nature and about the ordinary men and women who live in close touch with nature. In his nature poetry, poet chased the innocent joy of childhood, thinking about social life, to express themselves on the pursuit of ideals. His poems of nature with nature itself, to the realm of things I blend. His natural carol To a Skylark reflects the characteristics of these poetic creations.In his poems, Wordsworth often compared skylark to nightingale, which was served as a foil.Ethereal minstrel! Pilgrim of the sky!Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? (LL1-2). . .Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;A privacy of glorious light is thine. (LL13-14) [15]279From this poem, William Wordsworth reveals the joy and the heroic feeling of the poet when he gets up early in the morning. In the second section at the beginning of To a skylark, the Nightingale became a simple comparison with lark to highlight a more brilliant image of the lark and the feeling judgments of the poet. Here, nightingale image acts as a foil obviously. Wordsworth compares nightingale to lark only in order to laud the free and happy skylark. In this poem, Wordsworth plays down nightingale and puts a higher value of skylark.4.2 John Keats’Ode to a Nightingale--the happy and sad nightingaleJohn Keats, major English poet, despite his early death from tuberculosis at the age of 25. Although his literary career was short, John Keats is regarded as the summit of the English Romantic poets.One day when Keats was enjoying the tranquil, he heard the nightingale‘s song, and then he wrote the Ode to the Nightingale. In the poem, the poet seems to write the nightingale, but in fact he used the nightingale to express his colorful imagination and his inner feelings.At the beginning first stanza, the poet used the pain and happiness as conflict, through the happy nightingale, poet compared with his pain in heart, readers can feel the sad feeling of the poet and his wish that he would be as free and joyous as the nightingale.My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness painsMy sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,Or emptied some dull opiate to the drainsOne minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,But being too happy in thine happiness, (LL1-6) [15]At that time the poet‘s heart was insensitive by the disease and he was in a society of that kind when he heard the brisk song, he was shocked and was waken up. These we re shown in the words as ―aches and a drowsy numbness pains‖ and ―light-winged Dryad, full throated ease‖. S o the poet wanted some drink and tried to drown his sorrows in drink.O, for a draught of vintage! That hath beenCool‘d a long age in the deep-delved earth,Tasting of Flora and the country green,Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!. . .That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,And with thee fade away into the forest dim. (LL11-20) [15]The poet wanted a draught of vintage that would bring him to a new world, a world without sorrow and pain and full of sunshine and freedom. In Keats‘opinion, the real world flooded with painful things: sadness, sorrows, and oppression. So the poet wanted to be a nightingale and leave away from the mortal life.Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forgetWhat thou among the leaves hast never known,. . .Where but to think is to be full of sorrowAnd leaden-eyed despairs,Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. (LL21-30)In this stanza, the poet seemed he was in the ideal world after hearing the nightingale‘s voice. In the beautiful night, driving in a comfortable cart, enjoyed the perfect life of himself. The poet was absorbed in his dream world which was beyond reality. At that time, the poet was very happy and even hoped to die inthis fancy world in order to get rid of the pain in the real world.However, the poet realized that although he was going to die, the voice of the nightingale was everlasting.Forlorn! the very word is like a bellTo toil me back from thee to my sole self!. . .Past the near meadows, over the still stream,Up the hill-side; and now ‘tis buried deepIn the next valley-glades:Was it a vision, or a waking dream?Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? (LL71-80)And at the end of the Ode, the first two lines showed the poet had to leave the imaginary world, and he realized that it is negative to try to get away from the real world via the imaginary world. Then from the sixth line, nightingale was flying away, the poet came back to the reality. When poet came back to the real world, he found his pain came deeper ever than before.The nightingale in this poem contains two different aspects. In the first stanza, it is happy, while in the following it becomes sad.The poet uses comparison and contrast in this poem. He compares his own life to nightingale, so the beautiful song of nightingale becomes the sad expression. This because of the poet‘s life experience: Throughout his life, John Keats was constantly surrounded by death. His father died when he was only 8 years old. And Keats‘s mother died of tuberculosis, the illness that had also stolen his brother, just sis years after. His career went quite unsmooth. Also, because of poverty, his girlfriend didn‘t want to marry him. Even himself, knew that he had tuberculosis when he was only 24. All these, made young Keats felt painful with his life and this world. He couldn‘t escape from his fate, there was no immortal in the world, and no one would have a life full of happiness, what one have was only beauty and laugh that lasted for a moment long.This poem describes a kind of desire of the poet when he heard the beautiful song of nightingale, and the beautiful melodies inspired the poet‘s inner desire for freedom and hope for get rid of the earthly pain and sadness.Keats‘s nightingale embodies a host of contradictions: it is immortal, yet it is also associated with ―easeful Death‖[16]. Apparently, the image of the nightingale was used as a joy, but in fact this fun image contained of the pain and the sorrow of the poet himself. Nightingale image is a kind of sadness.5．The historical reasons of Nightingale imageTo sum up the above statements, the reason why English Romantic poets like to use nightingale and why nightingale image is the most often seem image in the English Romantic Poetry can be concluded into three aspects.Firstly, nightingale has its own culture connotations. Nightingale comes from an old sad story, and this story makes nightingale a special image in expressing the inner feelings of the writers who have similar life experience of the nightingale in the story. In the old myth, the word ―Philomela‖ also contains a new meaning: ―sad love songs‖.Secondly, the nature of nightingale makes one side. As the nightingale has a timid nature and likes to stay at quiet places and sing alone by itself, despite its beautiful sound, poets turn to write nightingale in their poems to show it free from the earthly world and ignorance of the outer world.The last and the most important, the historical background of English Romanticism has made a deep influence on the poets. During the Romantic period, literature, art music and philosophy beginning as a reaction and protest against the bondage of rules and customs of neoclassicism. It was characterized by reliance on the imagination and subjectivity of approach, freedom of thought and expression, and an idealization of nature. It returned to nature and plain humanity for material and brought about a renewed interest in medieval literature. Under this history, the poems become pithy, easy-to-read, optimistic, and free style. However, the sound of nightingale is too exceedingly sentimental and extremely sad, so most poets reject and discriminate against nightingale in their poems, except John Keats.All in all, nightingale image is familiar to English Romantic poets and it is one of the most common themes in that period.To understand the nightingale image in English Romantic poetry should combine the nightingale image with poets‘ own life environment and historical background.6．ConclusionThe recurrent, stubbornly archetypal image of the nightingale enables readers of Romantic poetry to discern how the idea of nature, and indeed the very meaning of the word ―nature‖. The British Romantic writers formulated an innovative understanding the natural world.The above discussion of the nightingale image in the English Romanticism poetry is by no means comprehensive but we can summarize that the nightingale image in English poetry plays an important role and the nightingale image in English Romantic poetry is diverse. It may be expressed sadness or happiness, it may be praised and it can also be depreciated. However, the ultimate meaning of their symbolic case, it is unified, that is the traditional symbol of mourning. However, whichever poem nightingale image in, it is actually expressed the poet‘s own mind.。

Enjoy Ode to a NightingaleOde to a Nightingale is a poem written by John Keats in May 1819. John Keats was one of the well-known English Romantic poets in the 18th century. During his life, he wrote many famous poets, such as On a Greeian Urn、To Psyche and so on, having great influence on the later poets after his death.This poetry has eight stanzas, and when it came to vowel forms, Keats incorporated a pattern of alternating historically "short" and "long" vowel sounds in his ode. In particular, in " And purple-stained mouth" has the historical pattern of "short" followed by "long" followed by "short" and followed by "long". This alteration is continued in longer lines, including this sentence ("Away! away! for I will fly to thee") which contains five pairs of alternations. However, other lines, such as the sentence ("Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains") rely on a pattern of five "short" vowels followed by "long" vowel and "short" vowel pairings until it ends with a "long" vowel. These are not the only combination patterns present, and there are patterns of two "short" vowels followed by a "long" vowel in other lines, which are repeated twice and then followed up with two sets of "short" vowel and then "long" vowel pairs. Ode to a Nightingale describes a series of conflicts between reality and the Romantic ideal of uniting with nature, including the antitheses of pleasure and pain, of imagination and reality, of fullness and privation, of permanence and change, of nature and the human, of art and life, freedom and bondage, waking and dream. In the Ode, the nightingale's song is the dominant image and dominant "voice". Also the nightingale is the object of empathy and praisewithin the poem.However, the nightingale and the description of the nightingale are not simply about the bird or the song, but implies the author’s feelings and sprits. The poem ends with an acceptance that pleasure cannot last and that death is an inevitable part of life. In the poem, Keats imagines the loss of the physical world and sees himself dead—as a "sod" over which the nightingale sings. The contrast between the immortal nightingale and mortal man, sitting in his garden, is made all the more acute by an effort of the imagination.。