Comparing nature/inspiration in ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire.’

Superficially, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire,’ could be seen to be very similar works of poetry. Both Keats and Hopkins draw inspiration from the sight and sounds of the English birds, and from here expand into an explanation of what has been termed ‘the imagination.’ The poetic imagination is not a concept that can be easily defined, but it can be broadly understood as a productive faculty, capable of producing profound knowledge that can then be transcribed most clearly in the form of poetry. Both Keats and Hopkins experience the world through Nature, and, through the awesome power of what they perceive, the two poets are capable of creating their identity through a subjective sense of feeling. ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ (Keats) and ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’ (Hopkins) explore the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which they attempt to describe. The poems can be seen as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, highlighting its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untameable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang. Hopkins’ work can be seen as an explanation of what he termed ‘inscape,’ which, coined on the word ‘landscape’ refers to the unifying designs by which the unique interior essences of a thing are held together. Hopkins’s poem shows what he believes to be the harmony of things, and points to a theological belief of a world which displays subtle and magnificent design. Keats, on the other hand, pens a poem that is more ambiguous. He highlights in ‘Ode to a Nightingale,’ the problematic relationship that the poet has with ‘the imagination.’ The transience of the nightingale reflects the fleetingness of the imagination, the impossibility of conglomerating the ideal