To a Nightingale

Charlotte Smith’s sonnet “To a Nightingale” has a distinctly somber and gloomy feeling. I couldn’t help but be a little sad after reading it the first time. But I think my initial feeling of sadness was due to some of the words Smith chose to use. Upon closer observation, I realized this sonnet is sad for a different reason. “To a Nightingale” uses words like melancholy, tender woe, martyr, disastrous love, and mournful melody. These words initially made me feel sad because they have distressing connotations, but the last line Smith says that she is sad because she cannot “sigh and sing at liberty”. This statement is much more depressing than the fact that she describes a poor melancholy bird with sweet sorrow. I think Smith projecting her own sadness onto the nightingale’s song. She was creating the sadness she was feeling into the sounds she heard. This reminded me of the Aeolian harp we have discussed in class. Smith’s experience of nature was affected by her own feelings and because she was sad, nature seemed sad too.