In literature, nature has always been considered an important subject. As a natural object, birds have also been mentioned in poetry. In fact, many poets have written many beautiful poems about birds. Birds are also often used as symbols in poetry. For example, in Bengali literature, the cuckoo bird is often associated with spring. In English literature there are many poems that are written about birds or birds play an important role in the poems.
For example, Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats and Ode to a Skylark by PB Shelly are two very famous poems about birds. Another similar poem is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in which the poet has used the albatross as a symbol. In accordance with the requirements of the assignment, I have selected John Keats’ Ode to Nightingale and ST Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for my discussion.
Before discussing the two poems mentioned above, it is necessary to shed some light on the two poets and the Romantic era in English literature as a whole. The Romantic Era in English literature is a unique era because in this era all the poets created their poetry about nature and nature-related themes. Nature forms the main aspect of his poetry. Before them, no poet could think of nature as the main theme of a poem. Romantic poets have successfully applied this theme. As a result, all the great bird poems were written around this time. John Keats was a romantic poet who has adored the beauty of nature in his poetry. Natural objects become alive and beautiful in his poem, yet he does not treat them as lifeless natural objects. He rather he mixed his own emotion and created a personal attachment with them.
He also expresses his own personal feelings like happiness, sadness, hope and frustration, etc. in his poems. In Ode to a Nightingale, Keats has expressed a desire to escape from a harsh reality that he cannot tolerate. He wants to join the nightingale and fly to a dreamland.
ST Coleridge on the other hand touched on the supernatural elements of nature and has presented them in a very natural way. Coleridge had a brilliant sense of imagination and with his excellent storytelling skills he could imagine the most supernatural thing and then describe it in the most natural way. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Coleridge has described the life of a sailor who had killed an albatross and then suffered immensely from killing it. The entire poem is based on the reaction to killing the albatross. A bird is a beautiful creation of god and by killing the albatross for no reason the sailor had committed a grave sin against god.
Only in the 20th century did men learn to fly like a bird before the airplane was discovered, men were always fascinated with the idea of flying like a bird. According to Greek mythology, Daedalus and Icarus tried to imitate birds and made artificial wings to fly. His efforts failed in tragedy. So the concept of flying was like a dream for mankind until the beginning of the 20th century, people marveled at birds because they could fly in the sky. The poets also appreciated this matter and their minds also wanted to fly with them. We see this kind of impulse in Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale. The life of John Keats was very tragic, he died early due to illness. He too had a depressing crush on a lady who brought him no success but only misery and in his own time some influential literary critics criticized his poetry in the worst possible way. So life became very miserable for John Keats.
All his life he sought to escape suffering and in Ode to a Nightingale we find Keats’s desperate effort to escape from the harsh and cruel world around him. He feels that the nightingale is very lucky to be able to fly away from anywhere. At the beginning of this poem the poet refers to his miserable condition:
My heart aches, and a sleepy numb aches
My sense, as if I had drunk hemlock,
Or emptied some dull opiate down the drains
A minute later, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
Here it is evident that the poet suffered greatly when he wrote this poem. Life has become too painful for him, he feels as if he had drunk hemlock or opium. He wants to forget all his pain and be happy in the joy of the nightingale.
For Coleridge the albatross is not an escape route but a holy and beautiful creation of God. Bring joy to sailors. Sailors have to spend many lonely days at sea during their voyage. Because of this, they often feel very lonely and do not have the opportunity to see any signs of life around them for days:
At last an albatross crossed,
Through the mist it came;
as if it had been a Christian soul,
We hail it in the name of God.
So when they see an albatross, they feel happy and hope that the land is close to them. The same thing happened with the companions of the old sailor. When they saw the albatross they happily greeted it and fed it and played with it. Thus, the albatross brought them company. Thanks to the arrival of the albatross they were able to escape from the harsh loneliness that surrounded them. Coleridge has presented this bird as a friend and companion to men.
Both poems have used symbolism very skillfully. Coleridge has used the technique of voluntary suspension of disbelief in which readers will forget the real world and believe that the world the poet presents is real. The plot of the poem revolves around the idea of sin-suffering-prayer-redemption. It is a poem with a moral touch. The sailor first committed a sin and then suffered for it. After much suffering he prayed to God and then God forgave him. The sailor learned his lesson from him and told others to show love and kindness to God’s creation. The albatross symbolizes Jesus Christ. The Sailor killed the innocent bird that brought company and hope for him and his fellow sailors:
And a good south wind rose behind;
The Albatross followed him,
And every day, to eat or play,
Made it to the sailor’s holo!
In the same way the men of Jerusalem crucified Christ who was innocent and who brought them the hope of their salvation. The other sailors were horrified when they discovered that the sailor had killed the albatross:
And I had done one hell of a thing,
And it would work ’em ouch:
For all that said, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze blow.
Oh wretch! they said, the bird to kill,
That made the breeze blow!
Normally, the song of the nightingale is a symbol of joy and happiness. But Keats wrote this poem when he was suffering too much from his illness. Although he sought happiness through the nightingale, he knew in his heart that he was going to die soon. Thus, the symbols of death and oblivion are present in this poem. Keats has referred on numerous occasions to Greek mythology. In doing so, he has treated the nightingale as if it were a magical bird beyond the reach of any sadness. So the bird is magical and free from human suffering. Keats wished he could be like this and beat all the pain and sadness out of him. In his quest to end sadness, he is like the Buddha. Buddha all his life sought to find a way to free himself from human suffering and achieve salvation. Keats has the same goal and in this poem his nightingale has that magical power, the only problem is that Keats knows that he is a human being and cannot be like the nightingale.
In ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ Keats tries to make a good balance between sensation and thought. We can find extraordinary sensual passages, like at the beginning. By using the word ‘sense’ and makes readers feel this sleepy numbness too.
The poet deals later with the problems of human life, as in the third stanza:
‘Here, where men sit and listen to each other groan;
Where the paralysis shakes some, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth turns pale, grows thin and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of pain?
In contrast to Keats, Coleridge uses the moral teachings of Christianity in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. He has put a lot of emphasis on the concept of sin and redemption. In reality, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is like a fable that at first seemed like a children’s story without any deep meaning, but a closer look makes readers realize that it contains the deepest of moral teachings. The moral lesson of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is:
Pray better who loves better
All things big and small;
For the loving God who loves us,
He made and loves everything.
Christianity teaches us the same thing: to love God and his creations. No other religion puts so much emphasis on this kind of love. The albatross transmitted this love to the sailors by bringing them joy and good luck. Thus, the albatross is also a magical bird. It is the bird that brings good luck and pleasant wind to sailors. The old sailor acted selfishly and brutally by killing him. He only thought of his own pleasure. He didn’t even think that he was killing an innocent bird for no reason. He was not lacking in food but he was certainly lacking in kindness. He forgot that there was a god who was more powerful than anyone. God certainly didn’t like that he killed the bird for no reason.
God showed the sailor that no matter how much power a man possessed, he should not be cruel to nature. If they did not follow humanity, they would be punished. The punishment suffered by the sailor was terrible. He suffered the worst form of pain: loneliness and isolation. By nature, human beings are social animals, so being alone on a ship in an endless sea was a terrible thing to endure. He often wished he had died, but it didn’t happen.
An orphan’s curse would crawl to hell
A spirit from above;
But alas! more horrible than that
It’s the curse on a dead man’s eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse
And yet he couldn’t die.
Only after the sailor realized his sin and deeply prayed to God for forgiveness was he saved.
At the same moment I was able to pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell and sank
like lead in the sea.
In his personal life, Coleridge was not a very religious person, but in this poem he has glorified Christianity in a very high way. Christianity always asks its followers to seek God’s forgiveness every day. If a person prays from the bottom of his heart, God is always ready to forgive him. The poem also shows Coleridge’s deep love for his country, England. When the sailor returned from his voyage to England he felt that he had come to heaven
Oh! dream of joy! is this for real
The top of the lighthouse I see?
Is this the hill? Is this the church?
Is this my own country?
In conclusion, the two poems can be said to be among the best bird poems in English literature. Poets have used birds as symbols and associated them with their own lives. Birds are magical but they contain more than just magic. They take us to another world, a dream and ideal world. The main difference between the two poets is that the nightingale appears to be something in the sky for John Keats and has no relation to everyday human life but is something beyond our normal life. On the other hand the albatross of ST Coleridge is something that is related to our daily lives. Sailors fed it and played with it. She was like his only friend in an endless sea.