KEATS Flashcards
Cyclical structure in LBDSM
Entrapment, grief, suffering
Danger in beauty LBDSM
‘fading rose’
Fall in status in LBDSM
‘pale kings and princes’
Isolation in LBDSM
‘alone and palely loitering’
‘on the cold hill side’
Ballad form LBDSM
Suffering
Pathetic fallacy LBDSM
Changing of seasons, shift in power
Evidence of madness in the ‘faery’
‘wild wild eyes’
‘I made a garland for her head’
Could suggest entrapment?
Religious language used for Madeline
‘splendid angel’, ‘saint’
‘so ____ a thing, so ____ from ______ _____’
‘so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint’
Cyclical structure in EOSA
Returns to image of coldness- ‘ashes cold’- implies that the only conclusion for love is death
Semantic field of coldness EOSA
‘bitter chill’, ‘frosted breath’
Vilification of the guests EOSA
‘barbarian hordes’
Evidence of Porphyro as a villain
‘painful change’
‘beset with tears’
Significance of Lamia’s snake form
Allusions to Satan
Does this make her unredeemable?
Lamia’s appearance
‘sapphires, greens and amethyst’ - seductive nature?
Keats’ view on dreams
Symbolise transcendance and imagination
Therefore their love is inevitably transient?
‘do not ___ ______ ___ at the ____ _____ of ____ _________’
‘do not all charms fly at the mere touch of cold philosophy?’
Evidence that Lamia and Lycius’ love is an illusion
‘as fearful the whole charm might fade’
‘and Lycius’ arms were _____ __ _______’
‘and Lycius’ arms were empty of delight’
Lamia in classical mythology
Was robbed of her children by Hera, vowed to revenge herself on all children
Contrasts in Lamia (3)
- Imagination vs reason
- Dream vs reality
- Poetry vs philosophy
Vilification of Lamia
Her form as a deceptive shape shifter, associations with demons and madness
Suggestion that Lamia puts Lycius under a spell
‘from one trance… into another’
Lycius as a helpless victim under Lamia
‘tangled in her mesh’
Lycius’ objectification of Lamia
‘prize’
How does Keats split our sympathies in Lamia?
Presents both Lamia and Lycius as the villain and the victim at various points- alternate between roles
How does Keats present Apollonius’ wisdom?
Wisdom which brings destruction
‘by the ____ glances of _______ ____’ (Lamia)
‘by the love glances of unlovely eyes’
‘Vale of soulmaking’
Link between beauty and pain- Keats believed that one had to experience suffering in order to know true love and beauty
‘Vale of soulmaking’ in Lamia
Lamia’s ‘melancholy eyes’
Pain as Lamia changes (‘her eyes in torture fixed’) shows that beauty comes at a price
Evidence of Lamia as twisted and manipulative
‘twisted braid’
Lycius as lovesick
‘pale with pain’
Lamia entangling Lycius- manipulator
‘the life she had so tangled in her mesh’
Lamia as deceptive/ false
‘playing the woman’s part’
Impermanence of Lamia
‘as a star in water’ (only a reflection)
Love as painful in Lamia (reflecting Keats’ views)
‘grievous torment’
‘there was __ _________ in those ____’ (Lamia)
‘there was no recognition in those orbs’
The egotistical sublime
Focuses on the importance of nature and beauty, overpowering reason
Sees everything in relation to themselves
Keats said he was experiencing a ‘_______ ___________ of feelings’
‘gordion complication of feelings’
What did Keats say about women?
‘children to whom I would rather give a sugar plum than my time’
Brothers and capitalism in Isabella
‘red lined accounts’
‘ancestral merchandise’
‘hollow eyes’
‘in blood from stinging whip’
What technique does Keats use to convey his views on capitalism in Isabella?
Hypophora
Hypophora in Isabella
‘Why were they proud?’
Suggest that hubris may lead to tragedy
Zoomorphism of Lorenzo
‘hunted hare’
Allusions to Romeo and Juliet in Isabella
‘and from her chamber window he would catch’
‘with every morn their love grew tenderer, and with every eve deeper and tenderer still’
Suggests the depth and intimacy of their love
Anaphora shows increasing infatuation
Could also hint to Isabella’s fatal flaw
Lovesickness in Isabella
‘sick longing’- Keats views that love is a sickness?
Fanny Brawne
Toxic relationship
Allusion to Dido in Isabella
Dido was a powerful woman who was abandoned by love in the underworld- foreshadows Isabella’s fate
Anaphora in Isabella to accentuate their closeness
‘all close they met’
Brothers as ‘half ignorant’
Tragic victims? Products of their society?
Verb used to describe Lorenzo’s death
‘slaughter’
Animalistic, disrespectful
Implies necessity?
Shift from autumn to winter in Isabella
Highlights Isabella’s misery
‘to see their sister in snowy shroud’
shroud- foreshadows her death, or implies that she died with Lorenzo?
Quotations for Isabella’s detachment from the outside world
‘she forgot the stars, and the moon, and the sun’
The brothers separating Isabella and Lorenzo even in death
‘they contrived to steal the basil pot’
Allusion to siren in LBDSM?
‘a faery’s song’
‘Do not all charms fly…’
‘…. at the mere touch of cold philosophy’
Inevitability in Lamia
Their love is built on deception/ an illusion
Madeleine’s status as tragic victim
Highlighted innocence and chastity to further a) sexualise her, or b) vilify Porphyro for what he has done
Isolation in EOSA
Madeleine’s physical isolation in her room allows tragedy to develop
Isolation in Lamia
‘shut from the busy world’
‘had not a friend’
Power in Lamia
Power of both Lamia and Lycius over each other
Power of men to dominate (Hermes, Apollonius, Lycius)
Treatment of women in LBDSM
Sexualises her sadness ‘I wiped her tears with kisses four’
Femme fatale
Power in LBDSM
The knight believes that his power, stemming from his status, means that he has a right to her
Brother’s plan
‘When twas their plan, to coax her by degrees/ to some high noble and his olive trees’
Inevitability in Isabella
‘For simple Isabel is soon to be/ among the dead’
‘For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die’
Inevitability in LBDSM
‘Death pale’
Keats letters to Fanny Brawne
‘I want to live with you forever’
‘O ________ Lycius! ______!’
‘O senseless Lycius! Madman!’
LBDSM context
Written in the summer of 1819- Keats knew he was dying
At the height of his unconsummated love for FB
Setting in LBDSM
Bleak wintry landscape reflects the knight’s deathly state- shrivelling plants
‘cold hill side’
Flowers in LBDSM
May serve to symbolise the danger in beauty (‘fading rose’)
Lily is the traditional symbol of death
Juxtaposition of the flowers in LBDSM
Lily (symbol of death) and rose (symbol of love) may suggest the inseparability of love and death
The faery as a femme fatale
‘she lulled me asleep’
‘wild wild eyes’
‘a faery’s song’
Madeleine’s holy characterisation
She is associated with heaven rather than earth. Emphasises her virginity
Contrasts with Porphyro- ‘love’s fev’rous citadel’
Madeleine as entrapped
‘lattice’ ‘bodice’
Spoiling of nature in Isabella
‘dip their swords in water’
Hermes as a villain
‘like a stooped falcon ere he takes his prey’
Happiness in Isabella
‘great bliss was with them, and great happiness’
Happiness in Lamia
‘unperplexed delight and pleasure’
Blindness in LBDSM
‘And nothing else saw all day long’
‘________ frame’
‘dazzling frame’
‘And fell into a ________ ___ of him’
‘And fell into a swooning love of him’
Keats love to FB
‘swooning admiration’
Keats to FB- ‘I cannot…
…exist without you’
Brothers as cruel
‘Men of cruel clay’
