Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats

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:

In the spring of 1819, Keats was living at Wentworth Place on the edge of Hampstead Heath.  Sometime during May – either in the garden of his house or outside the Spaniards Inn – he heard a bird singing.  This simple, near universal experience was to inspire the longest of the six odes that he wrote that year, Ode To A Nightingale, a meditation on the contrasting ideas of death and the pursuit of pleasure. 

Over two hours, through repeated readings and discussion we will discover a poem with great scope for exploration – the beauty of the language, the ideas of darkness, oblivion and mystery and the creative leaps taken by a poet reaching the height of his powers.

JOINING DETAILS:

• Facilitated by Caroline Hammond  
• Single-meeting, Wednesday 19 June 2024, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK)
• £30 to include background materials and opening notes
• Ode to a Nightingale can be read here