This poem starts off much different than previous poems of
this nature. Rather than exemplify the bird as a mode or window to the author,
Clare starts the poem with a search. The language is simple and understandable
as the author is “creeping on hands and knees through matted thorn to find her
nest, and see her feed her young.” This indicates a fascination for nature and
a love of the rawness and quest for seeking the Nightingale. The poem takes
place through the eyes of this search, however, because we are looking through
the eyes of humanity we see a lot of projection and personification within the
poem itself. “Her wings would tremble in her ecstasy, and feathers stand on
end, as ‘twere with joy, and mouth wide open to release her heart of its
out-sobbing songs.” In this case the nightingale becomes a joyful singer,
although the bird seems delighted her songs “sob” out. The poems grammar up to
this point and on, including the enjambment, make the read slow down and return
makes the poem’s tempo change to a sort of slow melodic beat throughout the
line, yet the shortness of the lines also makes it sort of jarring. Much like
an actual nightingale’s song (provided in the video below) the poem hits the
reader with short bursts of intense poetic melody.
More on the short bursts of melodic poetry, Clare does a fine job carefully selecting those bursts. Particularly, lines such as "For melody seems hid in every flower," and, "So here we’ll leave them, still unknown to wrong, /As the old woodland’s legacy of song." These lines along with others define the essence of the nightingale and its importance. I also agree with Rebecca and Jumi's post on how the speaker is advocating for natures beauty and tenderness.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed how this poem takes on a completely different situation than the other nightingale poems I've read. In Keats' poem, he introduces the nightingale's song through the eyes of a distraught speaker. But Clare's poem has more immediacy because he doesn't begin speaking in the abstract. He grabs the reader directly into the speaker's action.
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