Dejection By Thomas Hardy Essay

“Dejection: an Ode” and “Ode on Melancholy” are two of the most popular literary pieces of the romantic period in English literature. “Dejection: an Ode” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge was published in 1982 where the mood of the speaker changes by noticing a wonderful evening view which results in his suffering for the loss of his joy, imagination of various forms of devastation and concluding with the wish of gladness for a woman(Ogden 83,86) On the other hand, “Ode on Melancholy” was written by John Keats in 1819 where the notion of gladness as a temporary which transforms into distress as well as the process of making it tolerable has been discussed(Mayhead 57,58). Although, in both poems an endeavour to overcome numb grief is noticeable, distinction

In the poem “Dejection: an Ode” Coleridge addresses a lady(25). However, the woman is shadowy until she is completely portrayed in the fifth stanza of the poem(Ogden 84). Furthermore, Coleridge complements the lady as ‘pure of heart’ and ‘virtuous’(59,64). Shurr emphasizes that the lady possesses a key position in the poem(11). Marshall specifies the explicit address of the lady in the poem?? However, discussion about a lady and her enraged face is present in “Ode on Melancholy” as well(18,19). Keats adds about the lady that ‘she dwells with beauty’(21). Holloway presumes ‘she’ as the imagined mistress or the goddess of melancholy(171). Stone rejects the idea of the suppositional lady being the one who is mentioned as ‘she’(87). Therefore, Keats never addresses her. With negative instructions Keats starts the poem :
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine(1,2).

Consequently, it can be said that the poem “Ode on Melancholy” is written in a second person point of view and probably the poet is instructing the readers. As a result, it is clear that invoking of a woman has not occurred in “Ode on Melancholy” like “Dejection: an