LA BELLA DAME SANS MERCI

Question 1

What does the title mean?

Answer 1

Beautiful woman without mercy

Question 2

‘palely loitering’

Answer 2

Cacophony
Consonance
Unpleasant sounds

Question 3

‘the sedge has withered from the lake, and no birds sing’

Answer 3

Pathetic fallacy

Question 4

‘I see a lily on thy brow’

Answer 4

Purity/innocence/white
Looks pale

Question 5

‘thy cheeks a fading rose’

Answer 5

Red roses associated with passion/love however it is fading

Question 6

‘a faery’s child’

Answer 6

Suggest supernatural nature
Warnings of danger and deceit
Alluring and dangerous

Question 7

‘her hair was long’

Answer 7

Outside traditional gender norms in that time period (romantic period)
Unrestrained sexuality

Question 8

‘bracelets’

Answer 8

Shackles
Wants to catch and trap her
Restrain her sexuality

Question 9

‘roots of relish sweet, and honey wild, and manna-dew’

Answer 9

Nature spirit
Positive connotations of heaven/gifts from God

Question 10

‘she took me’

Answer 10

Unequal power in the relationship
Power shift
Man no longer in power

Question 11

‘her wild wild eyes’

Answer 11

Epizeuxis
Beginning to become more negative description

Question 12

What happens at the end of the first page?

Answer 12

VOLTA
Tone shift to more negative/danger

Question 13

‘on the cold hill side’

Answer 13

Consonance and unpleasant sounds
Positive to negative

Question 14

‘I saw pale kings, and princes too, pale warriors, death-pale’

Answer 14

Drained of blood
Repetition
Woman has taken away males power/life
Plosive alliteration shows bitterness

Question 15

‘on the cold hill’s side… on the cold hill’s side’

Answer 15

Repetition
Like refrain in song
Waking up

Question 16

‘alone and palely loitering’

Answer 16

No purpose
The woman has drained him

Question 17

What period was this written in?

Answer 17

The Romantics period

Question 18

What form is this?

Answer 18

Romantic poetry (in love with nature)
Ballard (song simpler and traditional associated with nature)

Question 19

What is the meter?

Answer 19

Iambic tetrameter but last line is iambic trimeter
Dying form at the end

Question 20

summary of la belle dams

Answer 20

• knight introduces how he met woman
• he brought her gifts and she stole his heart
• he spends all his time with her
• she then lulls him into a trance sleep and in his reams he sees all of the other powerful men warning him
• he wakes up and shes gone but hes abandoned on the other side of the hill

Question 21

structure of la belle dams

Answer 21

• ballad , iambic pentameter

Question 22

language of la belle dams

Answer 22

• ‘palely’ - sickness - adds tension immediately as poem begins