“He hath awakened from the dream of life— 'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings.”- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822) An elegy on the death of John Keats, “Adonais”-----How do you find aptness of the above qoute in reference to understanding John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale"?(10 marks)

 “He hath awakened from the dream of life— 

'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep 

With phantoms an unprofitable strife, 

And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife 

Invulnerable nothings.”- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822) An elegy on the death of John Keats, “Adonais”-----How do you find aptness of the above qoute in reference to understanding John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale"?(10 marks)

The quote from Percy Bysshe Shelley's elegy on John Keats, Adonais, is particularly apt when considering the themes and sentiments expressed in Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale". Shelley's lines—"He hath awakened from the dream of life— / 'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep / With phantoms an unprofitable strife, / And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife / Invulnerable nothings"—speak to the idea of transcending the painful illusions and struggles of life, a concept central to Keats' ode.

In "Ode to a Nightingale", Keats contrasts the fleeting nature of human life, full of suffering and sorrow, with the seemingly eternal, carefree existence of the nightingale. The bird, in its song, represents a world free from the burdens of mortality, a state of being that Keats yearns to join. The nightingale's song evokes in him a desire to escape the "weariness, the fever, and the fret" of human existence, a theme that resonates with Shelley's portrayal of life as a "stormy vision" filled with "phantoms" and "unprofitable strife."

Keats' meditation on life and death in the ode parallels Shelley's notion of awakening from the "dream of life." The nightingale becomes a symbol of this desired transcendence, an embodiment of the immortal and the eternal, in contrast to the "invulnerable nothings" that characterize human life. Keats longs to escape the painful realities of the world, much like Shelley's portrayal of an escape from the futile struggles that define human existence.

Moreover, the sense of disillusionment with life that Keats expresses—his recognition of the "mad trance" that leads people to futilely battle with the ephemeral—is echoed in Shelley's lines. The "spirit's knife" striking "invulnerable nothings" captures the futility of human efforts to overcome the inevitable, a sentiment that Keats explores as he grapples with the impermanence of life and the allure of the nightingale's seemingly timeless song.

Thus, Shelley's quote is deeply resonant with the themes of "Ode to a Nightingale", capturing the same yearning for escape from the harsh realities of life and the recognition of the futility inherent in human struggles. Both poets explore the tension between the transient and the eternal, the mortal and the immortal, ultimately suggesting that true peace lies beyond the illusions of life.