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    To The Nile Explain

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    Master Dew
    This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet about the River Nile written by John Keats. The 14 line poem is divided into an octave describing the Nile's mythical and mysterious qualities, and a sestet portraying the river's natural and usual qualities as a fruitful but labor-intensive source for a swart nation. Key elements include personification of the Nile as the "son" of an "old moon mountain" and "chief" in the opening lines, with a shift in tone at the 9th line known as the Volta where the focus changes from mystical fancies to realistic elements of the life-giving yet exhausting river.

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    To The Nile Explain

    Uploaded by

    Master Dew
    29 views3 pages
    This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet about the River Nile written by John Keats. The 14 line poem is divided into an octave describing the Nile's mythical and mysterious qualities, and a sestet portraying the river's natural and usual qualities as a fruitful but labor-intensive source for a swart nation. Key elements include personification of the Nile as the "son" of an "old moon mountain" and "chief" in the opening lines, with a shift in tone at the 9th line known as the Volta where the focus changes from mystical fancies to realistic elements of the life-giving yet exhausting river.

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    To the Nile explain

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    This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet about the River Nile written by John Keats. The 14 line poem is divided into an octave describing the Nile's mythical and mysterious qualities, and a sestet portraying the river's natural and usual qualities as a fruitful but labor-intensive source for a swart nation. Key elements include personification of the Nile as the "son" of an "old moon mountain" and "chief" in the opening lines, with a shift in tone at the 9th line known as the Volta where the focus changes from mystical fancies to realistic elements of the life-giving yet exhausting river.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    29 views3 pages

    To The Nile Explain

    Uploaded by

    Master Dew
    This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet about the River Nile written by John Keats. The 14 line poem is divided into an octave describing the Nile's mythical and mysterious qualities, and a sestet portraying the river's natural and usual qualities as a fruitful but labor-intensive source for a swart nation. Key elements include personification of the Nile as the "son" of an "old moon mountain" and "chief" in the opening lines, with a shift in tone at the 9th line known as the Volta where the focus changes from mystical fancies to realistic elements of the life-giving yet exhausting river.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    To The Nile - John Keats

    Most of the students find this poem very difficult because of the language, Keats has
    used. So, I like to explain you how to learn this poem and what are the most important
    parts that we have to pay our concentration on what we are going to learn in this
    poem .
    First and foremost, we should know this poem belong to the category of sonnet.
    Sonnet is a fourteen line poem. There are 14 lines in a poem. Basically, we can divide
    sonnets into two types in the literature. No. 1 it is known as Shakespearean sonnets
    and No 2 is known as Petrachan sonnets. Basically, both sonnets have fourteen lines.
    But there is a slight difference on the rhyme scheme.
    Shakespearean Sonnet Petrachan Sonnet
    A A
    B Quatrain -1 B
    A B
    B A Octave [ 8 lines]
    A
    C B
    D B
    C Quatrain - 2 A
    D 9th line VOLTA [ TURN]
    C
    E D
    F C Sestet [ six lines]
    E Quatrain - 3 D
    F C
    The Turn [Volta] D
    G Rhyming couplet
    G
    To The Nile – John Keats
    John Keats has written this poem to give two aspect of the River Nile.
    The first aspect is the mythical or the mysterious aspect; the mythical or the
    mysterious quality of the River Nile. This mysterious quality is brought to action through
    the octave part. Then in the sestet part explains the physical qualities [ or usual
    qualities of any river and he tries to show that Nile River is also just a normal river. That
    is explained in the sestet.
    Octave Mythical or the mysterious quality of the river.
    Sestet Natural elements. Or the usual qualities of the river

    These two aspects are very important to us because in questions you have to answer
    these two aspects.

    The poem starts as


    “SON of the old moon mountain African!
    Chief of the pyramids and crocodiles!”

    Through the first two lines themselves, John Keats has given us the idea or the
    perspective that this River Nile has something special. It says “You are son of the old
    moon mountain” SON, it is a metaphor. So the River Nile is directly compared to the
    son and the old moon mountain is the parents of the River Nile.

    First line has personification as well. The Nile River is personified. That means giving life
    to none living things.
    Chief of the pyramids and crocodiles. The chief again is a metaphor. The Nile River
    has been taken as the leader or the chief. Or the main figure.

    when now come to “Thee- you” is archaic language.


    Fruitful means - prosperous.
    That very while – at the same moment
    Seeing’s inward span – means ‘imagination’ [ third eye]
    Seeing’s inward span [ it is a periphrasis – [set of words which gives one idea or
    description rather than one word]
    There is another technique here called Juxtapose –[ juxtaposition]
    [desert and fruitful] Bringing to contradictory words together.

    Nurse of swart nation [ it is a metaphor]


    Thou – you is archaic language.
    Art thou fruitful? Rhetorical question.
    Worn with toil – work extremely hard. [ it is also archaic language]
    Sestet part.

    Shift in the 9th line is the Volta. [Where the change occurs from octave to sestet]

    On the 9th line the poet changes the attitude towards the Nile River.
    The mythical and mysterious quality changes into the reality.

    “O may dark fancies err? They surely do”


    The contents in the octave part are fancies. Te poet thinks that The Nile is not a special
    river. Practical elements of the river are being discussed from line number 9.

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