Escape into Art in Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale”

24/08/2020 1h 24min
Escape into Art in Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale”

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Episode Synopsis

Second in our series on the odes of John Keats is "Ode to a Nightingale," in which Keats imagines a journey into the realm of negative capability, a concept introduced in our previous episode on "Ode to a Grecian Urn." Keats hears a nightingale’s song and it inspires him to ponder such questions as, what makes an ideal artist? How might we access the world of artistic creation? How does art unite humanity across the ages? Wes and Erin discuss whether artists, however inspired, can escape the anxieties of a potential audience.

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