The Conflict between Dionysian and Apollonian in the Last Two Stanzas of Ode to a Nightingale from the Perspective of Classical Reception

Abstract

John Keats, one of the famous Romantic poets in England, wrote many famous poems in his life, among which the odes highlighted his literary and aesthetic attainments. Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale is beautiful and fluent, which differs from the imitation of ancient Greek works in the early years. Keats naturally integrates the ancient Greek colour in this poem, puts the narrator in the jungle so that the reader can listen to the nightingale singing along with the narrator, and engender the reader to appreciate the sadness at the end of the whole poem. During such a process, Keats’s emotional changes and conflicts are highlighted. Because the entire poem has ups and downs, a double interpretation can reflect the aesthetic value of Keats’s poem. It profoundly reflects Nietzsche’s Dionysian and Apollonian dialectics. This thesis aims to interpret Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale from two perspectives rather than a single emotional description and further extend the formation of Keats’s writing style. The tribulations in life and the social changes in that era comprise the conflicts in Keats’s poems, especially in Ode to a Nightingale, leaving readers a profound room to savour the tragic and fancy motif in the poetry.