The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem

The conversation poem is mostly associated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, although William Wordsworth also wrote poems, such as “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” (1798), that follow a similar format, as did John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. In addition to “The Nightingale,” Coleridge wrote seven other conversation poems: “Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement” (1796), “The Eolian Harp,” “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” (1797), “Frost at Midnight” (1798), “Fears in Solitude” (1798), “Dejection: An Ode” (1802), and “To William Wordsworth” (1807).

These poems are written in blank verse, and the speaker adopts a relaxed, informal tone as he addresses another person, who can be either present or absent. “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,” for example, is addressed to Coleridge’s friend Charles Lamb; “Frost at Midnight” is in part addressed to his baby son, Hartley. In “The Nightingale,” Coleridge addresses two auditors, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, as the three of them walk together.

At the beginning of a conversation poem, the speaker describes the physical setting—a tranquil place in nature, usually, as in “Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement,” in which he describes his idyllic country cottage.