A Level English Literature: Keats Essay Planning
Essay title: Referring to ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and one other poem of your
choice, explore the ways in which Keats presents experience of the natural
world.
Introductory paragraphs: key terms defined/ discussed, preliminary
contextual comments, ‘frame’ to argument
Romantic attitudes to nature being quasi-religious. Ode structure with
regular rhyme scheme of ABABCDECDE to mimic fluid musicality of
nightingale’s song. Linking of how nature is a lens through which to view
mortality; nature’s powers of transience that fuel our imaginations.
Topic sentence points (AO1) Text references and possible AO2
and AO3 approaches
Ode to A Nightingale: “for many a time/I have been half in
love with easeful Death,/Call'd him
Describes beautiful aspects of soft names in many a mused rhyme”.
nature, not because they restore his Half in love – complicated
will to live, but rather allow him a relationship with death, certain
newfound perspective that allows amount of lingering reluctance.
him to accept death. Towards end, Intense conflicted subjectivity as a
oscillates back to reluctance, and key value of Romanticism.
doubts that he ever came to terms “Was it a vision, or a waking dream?/
with mortality at all – transportive Fled is that music:—Do I wake or
power of imagination as sparked by sleep?
nature. “rich to die” Death consists of
Nature intensifies sensation – emptiness and desolation, but the
inspires philosophical ideas. Use of use of oxymoron in associates death
antithesis to present a dialectic as abundant, fertile, and rich in
argument. positive experiences.
"to think is to be full of sorrow"
consciousness itself is a kind of
burden – looking for escape not in
“hemlock”, but in the beauty of the
nightingale’s song
Essay title: Referring to ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and one other poem of your
choice, explore the ways in which Keats presents experience of the natural
world.
Introductory paragraphs: key terms defined/ discussed, preliminary
contextual comments, ‘frame’ to argument
Romantic attitudes to nature being quasi-religious. Ode structure with
regular rhyme scheme of ABABCDECDE to mimic fluid musicality of
nightingale’s song. Linking of how nature is a lens through which to view
mortality; nature’s powers of transience that fuel our imaginations.
Topic sentence points (AO1) Text references and possible AO2
and AO3 approaches
Ode to A Nightingale: “for many a time/I have been half in
love with easeful Death,/Call'd him
Describes beautiful aspects of soft names in many a mused rhyme”.
nature, not because they restore his Half in love – complicated
will to live, but rather allow him a relationship with death, certain
newfound perspective that allows amount of lingering reluctance.
him to accept death. Towards end, Intense conflicted subjectivity as a
oscillates back to reluctance, and key value of Romanticism.
doubts that he ever came to terms “Was it a vision, or a waking dream?/
with mortality at all – transportive Fled is that music:—Do I wake or
power of imagination as sparked by sleep?
nature. “rich to die” Death consists of
Nature intensifies sensation – emptiness and desolation, but the
inspires philosophical ideas. Use of use of oxymoron in associates death
antithesis to present a dialectic as abundant, fertile, and rich in
argument. positive experiences.
"to think is to be full of sorrow"
consciousness itself is a kind of
burden – looking for escape not in
“hemlock”, but in the beauty of the
nightingale’s song
