NCERT Solutions for Class 11 English (Woven Words) Poetry 11 Ode to Nightingale

Class : 11th

Subject : English

Chapter : 11

Chapter Name : Ode to Nightingale

Q1 How does the nightingale’s song plunge the poet into a state of ecstasy?

Answer. While sitting under a plum tree in the garden of his house, in Hampstead, Keats
stroked with an idea to compose a poem called “Ode to a Nightingale.” He has inspired the song
that nightingale was singing. The poet composed the poem keeping in mind the melodious voice
of a nightingale, and the mood of the poem was melancholic. Song of Nightingale is compared
with Lethe river water as he was feeling that he was happy and forgot about death, as he was
fully mesmerized by her song.

Q2 What are the unpleasant aspects of the human condition that the poet wants to escape
from?

Answer. Poet is celebrating happiness his happiness along with the song of the nightingale.
Keats dreams of escaping sorrow and sadness that life presents him. The poet wants to escape
all the unpleasant and sad things. He wishes that he could be free like a bird high and fly high
without any limits, and human life presents all the gloomy things and sad. While thinking about
the poem he writes various things that human experiences and bird doesn’t. The bird never sits
like an old man.

Q3 What quality of ‘beauty’ and ‘love’ does the poem highlight?