John Keats and Bob Dylan

Ode to a Nightingale John Keats web link		Mr Tambourine Man About Dylan in the 'Forever Young' section Wikipedia

'The great beauty of Poetry is, that it makes every thing every place interesting - '
John Keats to his brother George, 1819

Suffice to say that you will find much of what you'd like to know about the Poet John Keats at this excellent web presentation:

http://englishhistory.net/keats/

Keats saw great beauty in nature and sought to find words adequate to describe that beauty. His romantic style resonates in the work of later poets and songwriters of modern times such as Bob Dylan. Compare the 'Ode to a Nightingale' by Keats with the lyrics of the Bob Dylan song 'Mr Tambourine Man'.

Point of interest related to F.Scott Fitzerald studied in "In the Mood"

The title for Fitzerald's novel "Tender is the Night" is a phrase in the fourth stanza of Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale". It was Fitzgerald's favourite poem and one 'which I can never read through without tears in my eyes,' he said in a letter to his daughter.

A comment from Lionel Trilling on Ode to a Nightingale:

"...In sharp contrast with the lyricism which sustains itself through the whole poem which is quite as apparent in the expression of sadness or despair as in the expressions of ecstasy, the question with which the poem concludes - "Do I wake or sleep?" - shocks us with its sudden flatness and harshness of tone. That question was both explicated and answered by Shelly in "Adonais," his great elegy for Keats:

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep -
He hath awakened from the dream of life."

Q: Who is a Romantic?

A: A romantic is someone who believes in a beautiful world that he creates in his own mind. There are probably two main types: the melancholic dreamer who is forever disappointed that the real world does not match the dream and the rueful explorer who finds the real world fascinating and only wishes that others would share his insights. Whether it is in idealising life through the lush beauty seen in nature or in pondering on the nature of the human soul, a romantic is searching for a heightened sense of what is true.