Page 191 - DENG103_English - I

English–I

Notes in the south of France known for its wine, sun, and a kind of poetic song known as
“Troubadour poetry.” Many Troubadours wrote poems addressed to an unattainable
lover.
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
• What does all this talk about wine, inspiration, and drunkenness have to do with the
nightingale? What happened to that old bird, anyhow?
• The speaker sums up his intentions in these final two lines of the stanza.
• He wants to get drunk on this magical wine so that he can leave the “world” without
anyone noticing and just “fade” into the dark forest with the nightingale.
• But isn’t the forest part of the “world”? Apparently not. By “world” he might mean the
world of human society, work, responsibility, and all that. The nightingale lives apart
from this world.
• Putting aside all this business about Provencal and Hippocrene, the speaker wants to
drink for the same reason many people drink: to forget his problems for a while and to
have a more carefree state of mind.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
• If this were a movie, now would be the part when the screen gets all blurry, a harp starts
playing, and the dream sequence begins.
• The speaker dreams of “fading” out of the world, of just disappearing in a very quiet
way.
• He wants to forget about those things that the nightingale has never had to worry about.
Again, we don’t know much about which things he means specifically, but we assume
they must have to do with the stresses and cares of living in human society.
• The bird is free of such cares.

Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
• These lines ostensibly suggest that, like a sorcerer might frighten away spirits, the wind
scatters leaves. But one might also interpret “leaves dead” as forgotten books, and “ghosts”
as writers of the past; in this sense, the winds of inspiration make way for new talent
and ideas by driving away the memories of the old.
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou
• The colours named here might simply indicate the different shades of the leaves, but it
is also possible to interpret the leaves as symbols of humanity’s dying masses. In this
analysis, the colours represent different cultures: Asian, African, Caucasian, and Native
American. This idea is supported by the phrase “Each like a corpse within its grave” in
line 8 that could indicate that each person takes part in the natural cycle of life and
death.
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

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