The Nightingale Analysis

Ask most people what they think a poem sounds like… and they'll probably tell you that it rhymes. Well, not this one.In fact, many of the most famous poems of all time, even those considered clas...

We don't know the speaker's name, age, or even gender. (Most people assume it's a he and that Coleridge himself has assumed the role.) We do know, though, that the speaker cares very deeply about n...

It's a lovely night and we've joined our speaker for a bit of peaceful reverie. The sun has gone down and the night sky is full of dim stars. The green moss below us (and several clues from the spe...

Just what does a nightingale sound like? According to Coleridge, it sounds like a "musical and swift jug jug" (60). Sure… who doesn't love the sound of a good jug jug?But that's not what we mean...

Though it begins on a bridge, musing about the night sky, the poem quickly reveals its main subject: the nightingale, a bird known for its melancholy song. John Milton, with whose work Coleridge w...

A poet who is concerned with changing the state of poetry: that's our Coleridge.Just check out some of his most famous works. In "Kubla Khan," a poem about a dream takes interesting twists and tur...

No need to break out the fancy gear for this hike, Shmoopers. Though long, and written way before any of us were born, the poem is relatively clear and straightforward. Coleridge wanted it to seem...

Coleridge was a proto-hippie. At one point, he and a buddy planned to live in a commune in Pennsylvania. (Source)Our man Sam was BFFs with another major Romantic: Wordsworth. (Source)It took years...

We've got maidens talking to birds and a moon that makes a baby smile. This one is as clean as a cartoon fairy tale. Romantics didn't necessarily always get romantic (not the way we usually use the...

John Milton's Il Penseroso (13) Philomela, woman turned into a nightingale in Ovid's Metamorphoses (39)