Apophasis Approach: Drawing Similarities in Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats and To a Skylark by P.B. Shelley and Challenging the Keats’ Escapism

Abstract

Apophasis is a rhetoric device aimed at serving different purposes from the relationship between the speaker and the addressee to the mysticism. The understanding of this relationship may be direct and indirect. Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale and Shelley’s To a Skylark have never been explored from apophasis approach. The established notion of negative capability known as escapism from this world to the world of the song of nightingale as a distinctive feature of Keats poetry is challenged and replaced with the pure experience in this paper. This challenge is going to initiate a debate in future research. This paper also discusses the fact that despite similarity of experience in Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale and Shelley’s To a Skylark, the researchers and critics do not associate Shelley’s To a Skylark to escapism. The apophasis approach is useful in drawing this similarity and develop an understanding of romanticism from the two song specific poems of these romantic poets.