Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil

Question 1

Enriched from ancestral merchandise

Answer 1

• the brothers first introduction in the poem there is a pivot, a dramatic tone introduced
• they have generational wealth
• brothers are characterised by their greed and cruelty, wealth is the driving force for their actions (the reason they kill Lorenzo because he is not of a high enough class for them and won’t have any benefit to them materialistically)
• Keats doesn’t characterise them as individuals, he characterises them through ideology ‘they are industrialists and this is what happens when industrialists are in charge’ –> message against industrialists, written near the industrial revolution so contextually relevant

Question 2

servant

Answer 2

• this is how the brothers see Lorenzo
• only in terms of his wealth/class

Question 3

there was Lorenzo slain and buried in

Answer 3

• Lorenzo’s murder is said in one line despite the whole poem being about him
• example of narratological vision; the deliberate leaving out of detail so that we don’t get an idea of the suffering Lorenzo went to or gain an attachment to him
• it is meant to serve as an act of pity rather than an act of horror
• instead the murder acts as a catalyst for the emotional suffering of the forlorn Isabella

Question 4

pale shadow, a vision, moaned a ghostly under-song

Answer 4

• the way Lorenzo’s appearance is described reflects the tragic nature of his death, contrasts to how he was described at the beginning of the poem
• in an entirely different realm to Isabella but they are still emotionally connected
• Lorenzo’s afterlife is described more than his death, he is an unsettled spirit
• perhaps relevant to how there is no resolution for the poor; it is a never ending cycle in which people are trapped in
• semantic field of gothic imagery, perhaps to represent the horrors of love? The psychological distress that Isabella experiences is also a gothic motive

Question 5

a brother’s bloody knife

Answer 5

• powerful alliteration that emphasises the realisation that Isabella comes to when she finds that her own blood has betrayed her
• anagnorisis; the principle character discovers another characters true nature/identity
• this is the turning point for isbella, it represents a pivot from sadness into utter depression and insanity

Question 6

sweet Isabel, will die

Answer 6

• Keats addresses the reader and emphasises the need for pity here for Isabel, but prevents her death coming as a shock to us in the final stanza
• Isabella is initially a story for the common people in reality, but her decline and eventual reduction of identity, permit Isabella to becoming a tragic hero through her blindness and succumbing to love
• Isabel had to go through Lorenzo dying twice, has to go through the pain of her brothers actions twice
• symbolises how people will pursue their own greed even if it causes immense amounts of suffering
• Keats saying that love is a problem- it can ultimately consume us and become our entire identity (same with La Belle dame sans Merci)

Question 7

why were they proud?

Answer 7

• anaphora- repetition of the question four times for a specific effect - so that we really understand that there is no justifiable answer
• the first few times Keats himself answers the question (hypophora)
• the answers he gives are purely materialistic
• money has overwhelmed the world art, poetry, song
• they have an excessive pride which makes them sinful
• the final time he asks the question we don’t a response - the reason we don’t get a satisfactory response is because their proudness shouldn’t be glorified, Keats is trying to prove how their greed is unjustifiable –> they are being villainised

Question 8

were they unhappy then? - it cannot be -

Answer 8

• authorial intrusion from Keat- he addresses the audience and the original author of the poem (Boccaccio’s Decameron, in which he aimed to alleviate the suffering of housewives by relating tales of escapism)
• the caesura prevents the readers becoming too attached to Lorenzo and Isabella’s love, as it will so quickly be taken away
• is Keats trying to separate his story from Boccaccio’s? perhaps he is to show that it is less a story of love than it is a story of the horrors of industrialism
• narrative intrusion interjects the story and alerts the readers

Question 9

with every morn their love grew tenderer

Answer 9

• there’s a build up for a tragic downfall, and a sense that the idea of order is going to be disrupted (dramatic irony)
• tragic because otherwise their love could have blossomed into something so powerful and emotive
• language is used to heighten the sense of tragedy by describing how much they depend on one another
• anaphora (repetition on the next line) shows how their love is growing each day
• the stanza gives the reader the experience of synaesthasia, sensory experience of love itself through Keats imagery –> all indicate the consuming nature and overwhelming power of the love they have for each other
• this foreshadows what makes the poem so tragic –> how love turns to obsession, also introduced when Isabel is told to have “fell sick” which shows her dependency on Lorenzo
• as well as this the poem is set in the months of summer which indicates winter and darker days to come

Question 10

young mother|
infant

Answer 10

• Isabella is compared to a young mother whilst Lorenzo is compared to an infant
• Lorenzo contemplates his lovers superior social status
• Lorenzo and Isabella are presented to us in the same manner as Keats other tabooed lovers
• the male is in an inferior and infantilised position towards a higher status woman
• at the time the poem was set, a medieval law was in place that meant that people could only marry from their social class
• Lorenzo is aware of his lower social class which is why the lovers behaved clandestinely (secretly)
• Lorenzo is aware of the barriers to marrying her because of her high social status and beauty

Question 11

simple Isabel

Answer 11

• an essential feature of the poem
• Isabel is unexperienced and innocent, not meaning she is unintelligent
• Keats himself said there was too much inexperience of life in the poem
• but perhaps there is something to be said about this –> being nieve and in love is a state of blissful ignorance –> ignorance of the horrors to come