Isabella or the pot of basil Flashcards
Form
- romantic irony, a kind of literary self-consciousness and detachment, is used throughout; conveys Keats’ uncertainty about the poem, as well as his own views about capitalism, or Enlightenment, prevailing over Romanticism
- the brothers in the poem are meant to symbolise capitalism and greed within society vs. romanticism and beauty, as a result of Keats’ relationship with the radical publisher Lee Hunt who educated him on politics; also symbolises Keats’ struggle against the Enlightenment movement, as he was a Romantic.
Introduction of both characters
“Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
“Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love’s eye!”
- exclamatives emphasise the lovers’ feelings and looming tragedy
- name means worshipping god in Hebrew
- tragic looming love affair
- lower class: tragic trope outside natural order
- alludes to pilgrim in Romeo and Juliet, foreshadowing tragedy; personification of abstract noun conveys the force of love.
form and imagery reflects love
“sick longing” - obsession
- love grows slowly and steadily; this is reflected in the pace of the poem
- natural imagery / pastoral imagery and links to music show sweetness of their love; romanticism and natural love
their love in may?
“A whole long month of May in this sad plight
Made their cheeks paler by the break of June:”
“Honeyless days and days”
- imagery links with illness; pale
- setting contrasts with unrequited love
- passage of time; love continues - summer to winter - death
- pathetic fallacy conveys the progression of the relationship; connotations of seasons foreshadow tragedy
Isabella’s upset cuz she loves him so much
“untouch’d cheek
Fell sick within the rose’s just domain”
“Fell thin as a young mother’s, who doth seek
By every lull to cool her infant’s pain:”
- ironic foreshadowing and allusion to how societal convention will keep the couple apart
- “rose’s just domain” - linked to romance; nurtures love
- maternal love - unconditional; also reflects gender roles in a patriarchal society; she will not be mother: tragic
- purity and innocence of Isabel enhances tragedy
lorenzo scared to confess his feelings
“Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!”
“meekness of a child” - inferior
“So once more he had wak’d and anguished
A dreary night of love and misery”
- juxtaposition - typical of Keats; could show incompatability or competing emotions
forshadowing of deaths; pale
"”She saw it waxing very pale and dead”
“i love thee” “My soul is to its doom”
- foreshadows doom
pathetic fallacy to emphasise love - lorenzo’s pov
"”Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,
Lady! thou leadest me to summer clime”
“happiness // Grew, like a lusty flower in June’s caress.”
- sexual connotations
- pathetic fallacy shows his life before Isabel and with her love
risking everything to be together
“All close they met again, before the dusk”
“free from any whispering tale”
- repetition
- they are risking everything to be together; the Italian context provides distance from scandal
symbolises endings, loss and the coming of unpleasantness
idea that love should be enjoyed in moment
“Were they unhappy then?—It cannot be—
Too many tears for lovers have been shed” “too many”
- repetition of too
- love should be enjoyed in the moment as their time together is short
- the hyphens separate the lovers
- romantic irony and repeated phrase creates tragedy as the lovers should have taken more initiative in being together
metaphor of danger sweetening their love
“Even bees …
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.”
“Though Dido is silent in under-grove” - classical allusion as the poem echoes story of Queen of Carthage wooed by Aeneus; the gods ordered him to leave her, foreshadowing heartbreak.
Initial description of the brothers
“enriched from ancestral merchandize”
“In torched mines and noisy factories”
- dangers of industrialisation and capitalist greed are highlighted; contrasted to the natural “dazzling river”
- patriarchal / fraternal power is clear
- ecocritisism
corruption of brothers
"”And many once proud-quivered loins did melt / With blood from stinging whip- with hollow eyes”
- conveys predatory nature of the brothers, as they degrade the strongest of men as hunters become the hunted; post colonial
- metaphor: pleasant love will turn to pain; ease of cruelty is a criticism of capitalism which makes love difficult
Why were they proud?
“Why were they proud? Because red-lin’d accounts
Were richer than the songs of Grecian years?—”
- repeated
- horrors / exploitation of capitalism are emphasised
- romantic irony, repetition and hypophora shows Keats’ views of capitalism
- benefits of capitalism are highlighted
- polysemantic words conveys literal account books and conveys figurative meaning of blood spilled to make the brothers prosper.
highlight selfishness of brothers
“In hungry pride and gainful cowardice,
As two close Hebrews”
“florentines” - known for corruption and Machiavellian nature
- anti-semitism highlighted - Jews seen as greedy
- immoral so will prevent Isabella’s happiness
plague imagery
“Hot Egypt’s pest
Into their vision covetous and sly!”
- Biblical allusion: brothers are sinning and likened to plague
- metaphor for how God plagued Egypt with locusts parallels how the brothers plague those who have ‘wronged’ them
imagery of lily’s
"”And of thy lilies, that do paler grow” - flowers symbolise ill-fated love: lilies were popular funeral flowers and symbolise death. “
the brothers are bitter have discovered his love
“bitter thoughts” “Should in their sister’s love be blithe and glad”
- they are jealous of the relationship; Isabella and Lorenzo’s love contrasts with her brothers’ feelings
- status
- the brothers’ feel bitter as they objectify Isabella as property
- coax - she won’t be happy
- olives connote peace; this ironic Biblical allusion shows hypocrisy and conveys how the brothers will come to regret their decision. “high noble and his olive-trees”
plan to kill him; contrast with pleasent pastoral setting in next stanza
“Cut Mercy with a sharp knife to the bone”
“pleasant morning”
- the simplicity of the description of the plan implies the brothers’ lack of foresight; contrast with her dull knife
- Mercy personified to highlight what the brothers lack; foreshadows violence
- “men of cruel clay” links to industrialisation; implies lack of emotion
get him to follow them to his death
“Lorenzo, courteously …
Bow’d a fair greeting to these serpents’ whine;
And went in haste”
- Ironically Lorenzo, a servant, is courteous, while the brothers are metaphorical serpents; deception
- Lorenzo can’t refuse the brothers so tragedy is inevitable; they could have just asked him to leave
lorenzo talks to isabella last time before death
"”Goodbye! I’ll soon be back” - irony enhances tragedy as the reader is reminded of the life Lorenzo and Isabel could have had
they kill him
“They pass’d the water
Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.” - like animal
- brothers “sick and wan” lorenzo “flush with love”
- contrast between beauty in nature / Lorenzo’s love vs “Sick and wan” brothers-
- “murder’d man” - past tense contrasts implies Lorenzo was doomed from the start
simile to suggest brother’s sins will come back to haunt
“blood-hounds”
“Each richer by his being a murderer” - irony conveys the stupidity of prioritising capitalism over Romantic ideals; brings nothing
excuse of brothers
“sudden speed” - he left
“Poor Girl!”
“‘scape at once from Hope’s accursed bands”
- “Hope” personified to show the hold it has on Isabel
- sibilance emphasises pace
she’s sad hes dead
“Selfishness, Love’s cousin, held not long Its fiery vigil” - personification of emotion reflects the Romantic ideal of emotion over logic.
“fiery vigil” - noun phrase conveys devotion and foreshadows Isabel’s later actions.
- her feelings are overtaken by her passion and her grief
Isabella depressed/ winter imagery/ losing her looks/ their guilt?
“breath of Winter”
“gradual decay from beauty fell”
- winter: death
- present continuous tense - ongoing; her demise echoes changes in nature
“Their crimes / Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom’s vale” - simile conveys how the brothers are cursed by their actions; guilt?/ classical illusion
dangerous passion highlights isabella’s greif
“It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance”
“With cruel pierce, …
Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.”
- violent imagery
- the image of Lorenzo offers Isabel some brief respite
- Lorenzo’s appearance, voice etc. mirror Isabel’s demise; nature has lost its beaut
vision of lorenzo
“It was a vision.—In the drowsy gloom”
- gloom is personified as drowsy, or lethargic
- Lorenzo’s emotion mirrors Isabel’s reaction to his loss
- Lorenzo’s appearance, voice etc. mirror Isabel’s demise; nature has lost its beauty
- declarative and end-stopping marks Isabel’s anagnorisis, the point at which she realises the truth.
lorenzo’s ghost talking
“Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake”
“piteous tongue”
“moan’d a ghostly under-song”
- Isabel is still drawn to the vision of Lorenzo, highlighting the depth of her feelings
- Gothic elements highlight the darkness and tragedy here
- his torment
lorenzo describes feeling of death
“a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet”
“prickly nuts”
- Lorenzo feels the weight / discomfort of his death - droop, weighs, flint, prickly; oppression continues
- Isabel is still drawn to the vision of Lorenzo, highlighting the depth of her feelings
““I am a shadow now, alas! alas!”
“Alone: I chant alone”
- exclamations; pitiful; can’t ascend to heaven; unnatural death
“thou art distant in Humanity”
- conveys the indignity of Lorenzo’s death as he didn’t received his last rites, which were seen as crucial in Catholic Italy.
can’t remember life on earth; but destined for heaven
“That paleness warms my grave, as though I had / A seraph chosen from the bright abyss” - Petrarchan conceit conveys Lorenzo’s love as a “seraph”, the highest order of angel. The oxymoron “bright abyss” might imply Lorenzo is destined for heaven.
- Consonance in the phrase “slow turmoil” drags out Isabel’s suffering.
isabella wants to find his body
- Personification of “Fate” creates a further allusion to the “star cross’d lovers” in Romeo and Juliet; it was Keats’ favourite play.
- “a brother’s bloody knife!” - alliterative plosives convey the cruelty of their actions.
- “How she might find the clay” - anaphoric allusion to “cruel clay”, i.e. the unmasking of the murder.
- “forest-hearse” - metaphor for how the forest is Lorenzo’s resting place, where he can journey to the afterlife
- “Spirit” “thou hast school’d my infancy:” - lost innocence; Capitalisation creates a tragic separation between Isabel and Lorenzo
she finds his body
- Personification of “hungry Death” conveys that Lorenzo has been taken by unnatural forces; predatory
- “like to a native lily of the dell” - simile conveys death and devotion through lily symbolism
pastoral gothic imagery when she is finding him
“creep along the river side,”
“green church-yard”
- Gothic elements / image of decay bring a dark air to Romanticism
she cut his head off
“With duller steel than the Perséan sword
They cut away no formless monster’s head”
“Love never die”
“Pale Isabella kiss’d it, and low moan’d.
‘Twas love; cold,—dead indeed, but not dethroned.”
“Her silk had play’d in purple phantasies”
- implies Love rules all and is eternal
- although he’s dead, Lorenzo’s body brings life to Isabella; pale implies she’s close to death
- alludes to Perseus slaying Medusa; this act is less heroic
Isabella has his head and is consumed by mourning; looking after head
“With tears, as chilly as a dripping well,
She drench’d away:—and still she comb’d, and kept
Sighing all day—and still she kiss’d, and wept.”
- relationship remains clandestine; tension is increased
- wild suggests Lorenzo is part of nature
- she shows a religious devotion to his skull: calm’d, comb’d, kiss’d shows her tending to it
- Simile conveys that the joy has gone from Isabel’s life as she is consumed by mourning.
repetition of and she forgot
“And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun”
“Hung over her sweet Basil”
- nature now seems lost to her; she has lost track of time
- anaphora emphasises her obsession
- Repetition of “And she forgot” enhances the idea of obsession with the pot of basil.
- - basil symbolises love, good wishes and holiness; in Italy, a man who accepted basil from a woman was destined to marry her.
she fed it with tears and it grew
“And so she ever fed it with thin tears,
Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew”
- thin suggests she is weaker as plant grows stronger
- ironic as the basil blooms but Lorenzo and Isabel’s love cannot.
personification of melancholy
“O Melancholy, linger here awhile!”
- it seems she wants to wallow in the negative emotion
- personification of Melancholy emphasises the hold it has
- Exclamations create a wailing tone
brothers wanna steal pot; steal it find his head
“The thing was vile with green and livid spot, / And yet they knew it was Lorenzo’s face:”
- gruesome image contrasts with Isabel’s feelings
- repetition; brothers robbed her of love twice
Isabella upset about them stealing her basil pot; dying
"”O cruelty,
To steal my Basil-pot away from me!””
“For simple Isabel is soon to be / Among the dead”
- foreshadowing creates tragedy through waste of life.
metaphor emphasising her care for the head
“And, patient, as a hen-bird // Beside her basil, weeping through her hair” - simile creates pathos as Isabel tends to the basil like she would a husband or child.
- The use of a domestic/maternal bird conveys contemporary ideals as the men are presented as more powerful creatures.
downfall of villains
- “With blood upon their heads, to banishment.”
- cowards; guilt?
techniques
- ref to shakespeare
- biblical references
- flower imagery
- natural world contrast to exploitation
- classical references
