by BrokenLyre » Sun May 24, 2009 1:36 am
You mentioned: "discuss the significance of dreams in Keats's expression of the imagination". I think this is the easier of the two choices you mentioned. For what it's worth, all the Odes use imagination. But if you want to compare/contrast two Odes, I suggest "Ode to Psyche" and "Ode to Nightingale." The first is drenched with Greek imaginative reflection with application to Keats' own poetic desires ("I will be thy priest"). Nightingale is also imaginative but very confessional in style with more personal reflections drawing from both Greek and Biblical imagery ("through the sad heart of Ruth..."). The voices are different in each poem, the tone is different and yet there are similarities between them. That's what I would do.. Hope this helps.
"Come... dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. Dry your eyes... and let's go home."