The ode, in the realm of poetry, is perhaps one of the simplest and yet most frustrating forms there is. The first odes were primarily considered to be a poem written with the intention to not only be sung, but performed. The Greeks, from who the ode originates, were never ones to do anything by halves. More modern versions, however, are a bit tamer. They have come to be considered an often rhymed lyrical address of praise to a usually exalted subject. This, however, is not a very satisfying definition for an entire poem genre, as it has specified no certain meter, length, structure, or rhyme. So, what is an ode? There seems to be three distinct types– two based on ancient poets, Pindar and Horace, and one simply called “Irregular.” Such difficulty with defining the characteristics of an ode meant that by the time our Romantics began writing them, there were very little expectations regarding what a poem in the genre should be. Rather than focus on crafting a poem within a certain limit of syllables, line lengths, or ABBA rhyme scheme, the romantics chose to write odes based on their intrinsic purpose–to offer public praise, to fixate on a subject or object and wax poetic about all its wonders or woes.
With all this freedom, all this possibility, one would expect that no two authors would come close to writing similar poems. These are, however, the Romantics we are concerning ourselves with, and one can verily attest that in the world of romantic poetry, there are some motifs that seem to transcend time, space, and (supposed) overuse. Such the case is with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode” and John Keats’ “Ode on Melancholy.” Both authors choose not to write a piece focused on praising to a distinct person, place, or thing, as would be the expectation from the ancient forms, but instead on lamentations of worldly forces, specifically those of sadness, gloom, and melancholy. The poems interact with each other so well that the only difference between them that can be discerned in where they place the focus of their poem, who or what they designate the subject to be. Yes, they both write about gloom, but in different manners. Coleridge chooses to write about his own gloom in “Dejection,” situating himself in the foreground. When he writes of dejection, he means his own. While readers may be able to empathize, the feelings he is relaying are individual to him and are not easily or perfectly replicable to any other human. Keats, on the other hand, does not write on his own melancholy. In fact, he does not insert himself into the poem at all, choosing instead to make the subject of his poems figurative embodiments of universal truths and forces, sucha s the essence of melancholy or the temporality of beauty and joy. Through each of their abstractions, both of the ode form itself and of their unusual subjects, each poets is able to find freedom, to reach a state of reprieve, from the philosophical turmoils of their minds.
Coleridge was first in many things, as far as Romanticism is concerned. While he was not the first of the era to craft an ode, he is credited with producing the earliest poem dedicated to melancholy. If an ode is meant to be, as was once described, as public, ritualistic, sweeping, and all encompassing, the antithesis of the deeply personal lyrical ballad, then Coleridge was also the first to blend those two forms. If one were to examine the ode through the historical lense of Pindar, the Greek poet credited with crafting the ode form, they would see that Coleridge adheres to his complex structural and stanzaic parameters fairly well, considering the first comprehensive breakdown on Pindaric odes and their qualities was not published until over a decade after “Dejection” was published. His poem distinctly contains the three structural elements that are considered integral to a Pindaric ode: the strophe, antistrophe, and epode. Coleridge utilizes this ancient form to write about his own tragedy: his 30’s. Coleridge was not in a good place when he wrote “Dejection.” At that point in his life, he could not stand his wife, he rarely saw his children, and he was desperately in love with a woman he could not have. Enter Wordsworth–happy, in love, successful–showing him the latest stanzas he had composed for their shared collection. Faced with all these troubles, all this hardship, Coleridge feels nothing. He feels nothing at all and it absolutely shatters him. For Coleridge realizes that he has lost his imagination, the very life force of his spirit, and he no longer sees happiness as something that can be achieved again. Furthermore, Coleridge realizes that he is the only one who can change this, that can relieve himself from this feeling. Much like in his previous poems concerning our relationship with the world, where he insisted that humans should not impose their own feelings of happiness or melancholy on external forms of nature, such as a poor nightingale, he now recognizes that the beauty of nature cannot impose joy upon him.
Coleridge understands the relationship between man and nature, he knows that his feelings and the influence of nature are, more or less, mutually exclusive. He knows that nature cannot save him, his last realization, that nothing can but himself, and the thought (strangely) comforts him. For, if everything we feel comes from within ourselves, then certainly we have some control over our emotions. Coleridge, the masochist, chooses to feel pain, chooses to feel his own loss as deeply as it goes, just so he can feel anything at all. The zest for life might have momentarily escaped him, but in this ode, this somber song he writes, he has given himself the choice to shed the layers of numbness that have entrapped him. This is his fixation—not only feeling the gloom, but interacting with it. Wrestling with it, realizing that even though he has to bear the load, he is also the only one that can lighten it. There is a sense of freedom in being the master of your own fate, of knowing truly that you are the only power that has the ability to fundamentally change an aspect of your own existence, and that is the true blessing behind his personal feelings of dejection.
Though Coleridge may have found some sort of reprieve in his sadness, he does not speak for all, and that was never his intention. One of Keats’ odes is perhaps more adaptable to a general audience, without losing any of the weight of the emotion. To say that Keats was conscious of or interested in Coleridge's poetry is a bit of an understatement. Some of Coleridge's poems were cited by Keats as direct influences for his own. He was known to not have only owned volumes of Coleridge's poetry, but have met him, reportedly saying, rather excitedly, "Let me carry away the memory, Coleridge, of having pressed your hand!" Keats, like Coleridge, wrote an ode on the sadness and gloom he’d come to know, entitled "Ode on Melancholy.” The time between their publications resembles, in length, an entire spans of maturity. Between 1802 and 1820, a generation would have been born, lived, learned, perhaps even read “Dejection: An Ode,” grew experienced, had the veil that allowed them to see the world as good and pure lifted from their eyes, and lost their innocence, just in time for Keats to publish “Ode on Melancholy.” It seems appropriate to recognize this, not only in respect to Keats and Coleridge’s relationship in time, but in their similarities of tones. They differ, however, in the focus of the poem, the central subject/object, which makes all the difference. Keats does not place himself with the foreground of the poem, he doesn’t even place himself in the poem at all. This poem, like Coleridge, is not meant to be about other people, places, or things, but on the forces of beauty, happiness, and, yes, melancholy that are present within the world. In many ways, “Ode on Melancholy” seems to exists in conversation with “Dejection.”
Perhaps it can be seen in the unnatural beginning to “Melancholy,” where Keats seems to be delivering an answer for a question the readers have not heard. While history will say that a previous stanza existed, but was removed for publication, I find it much more interesting to observe just how perfectly Keats’ words respond to Coleridge's. Keats writes about the temporality of beauty and joy, saying that they are inevitably to be lost forever. That is just the set up, though, for the real focus is how do we, as human, respond. Do we react the way Coleridge initially does, by becoming numb? Do we consider killing ourselves? Do we surrender ourselves to the numbness, do we force pain upon ourselves, as Coleridge considers, just so we can feel anything at all? No, implores Keats. He says that melancholy is not the absence of beauty or joy, but that it is instead the nature of man, the baseline emotion, if you will. Beauty and joy are just momentary pleasures that relieve us of the melancholy, but they are not sustainable. Only through recognizing that we are destined for melancholy can one find peace.
Again, there is sense of freedom in knowing such a universal truth. Perhaps knowing that pleasure is temporary will allow us to savor it more, much in the same way that knowing that we are destined for melancholy will allow us to resent it less. Just as in “Dejection,” Keats recognizes that there is an emotional load to bear when one is a human, but he is saying here that Coleridge was mistaken–the melancholy is not the hardship, it is the misconception that joy and beauty are all that should be cherished. When one recognized the temporality of such, he is able to live more freely, if not necessarily more merrily.
By choosing to focus on broad universal forces rather than his own internal anguish, Keats may fit more snugly into the loose mess of characteristics of what an ode should be. One could also say that Coleridge accomplishes the same by choosing to follow the Pindaric model, minus the singing and dancing, instead of the horatian or irregular models.