Critical Appreciation of first stanza of Ode to a Nightingale The first stanza basically shows how Keats is overcome by listening to the nightingale sind and he wants to abandon himself to a half-sleeping, half-waking sensation. The words used in this stanza have an underlying meaning. For example, when Keats says that his heart aches, it could be a reference to how he suffered psychollogically through his tuberculosis, it could also be a reference to …showed first 75 words of 1377 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1377 total…like the nightingale's actual song. In the very first line, Keats has personified numbness by saying it's drowsy the reason he does this is that numbness itself is lack of feeling so to make this lack of feeling something felt he calls it drowsy. Synesthesia is also used in this stanza when Keats talks of hemlock he combines the tactile sense since hemlock induces numbness and the visual sense because it has a bright colour.