Ode to a Nightingale | John Keats | English Literature | UG/PG

1 Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line such as the sound of /th/ in “That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees”.
2 Simile: A simile is a figure of speech used to compare something with something else to make its meaning clear. Keats has used simile in the second stanza, “Forlorn! the very word is like a bell.” Here the poet is comparing forlorn to a bell.
3 Enjambment: Enjambment refers to the continuation of a sentence without a pause after the end of a line in a couplet or stanza. For example:
“My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains.”
4. Imagery: The use of imagery makes the readers visualize the writer’s feelings, emotions or ideas. Keats has used images to present a clear and vivid picture of his miserable plight such as, “though of hemlock I had drunk,”, “Past the near meadows,”, “Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves.”
5. Assonance: Assonance is the repetition of same vowel sounds in the same lines of poetry such as the sound of /o/ in “In some melodious plot” and /i/ sound in “The voice I hear this passing night was heard.”
6. Metaphor: There are two metaphors in this poem. The first one is used in line eleven, “for a beaker full of the warm south”. Here he compares liquid with the southern country weather.
7. Personification: Personification is to give human qualities to non-human things. Keats has used personification in line twenty-nine, “where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes” as if the beauty is human and can see. The second example is in line thirty-six, “The Queen moon is on her throne.”
8. Anaphora: It refers to the repetition initial words of sentences in sequence or in the whole stanza or even the poem. Keats has repeated the word “where” in the following lines to emphasize the existence of his imaginative world. For example:
“Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes.”
9. Apostrophe: An apostrophe is a device used to call somebody from afar. The poet has used this device in line sixty-one, “Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird.”