by Derek Johnson

Created on: November 05, 2008

Visions

We all have visions at one point in our lives and we have to wonder if they are real or not. These visions could be a distorted part of our imagination, or drugs or alcohol creates them. John Keats and James Thomson become relevant because they both went into great detail describing their "trips" through poetry during the 19th Century. Keats had visions in his "Ode to a Nightingale" without the aid of opium or alcohol, and Thomson used alcohol to enter The City of Dreadful Night. Keats used vivid imagery while writing, and it is amazing Thomson could recall the events that took place in such an alcohol-induced stupor. Without their help, we as readers are unable to put visions into words. Therefore, these two poets are extraordinary because they can see what the reader cannot; they had the privilege to go into a world readers can only dream of.

In Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale", the narrator is leaving his life of depression and sorrow just for a moment, as he gives his confessions to a nightingale. The nightingale is real and not a vision though:

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. (Lines 6-10)

The bird as a "Dryad" does give mythological connotations in this dreamscape atmosphere. Keats admires the bird so much that it's labeled as a Dryad, but it makes no difference to what it is in reality. The bird is nothing but flesh and bone. Readers that do not read poetry could see Keats as an insane man, giving his heart and soul to a bird perched on a tree. Keats is completely sober even though he says in the ode that he desires wine. His melancholy state of mind creates his visions. He envies the nightingale because he thinks the bird can sing his worries away while Keats wants to return to a comfortable state of mind. Keats wishes he could be released from his emotional torture. As readers, we mustn't take the ode too seriously only because Keats is delirious from his pain. We must forgive Keats for his rambling relationship with the bird. After all, the bird is Keats' confessional. From an artistic standpoint, he is a true visionary to sit, listen to the nightingale and create all of these images with such a strong imagination:

Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense

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