La Belle Dame Flashcards
What parallels can be drawn between the temptation scene in Adam and Eve and La Belle Dame’s preparation of a love potion for the knight?
A prelude to lulling him to sleep: ‘She found me roots of relish sweet…/she said’/I love thee true’.
Just as the woman disguises the evil within her by projecting as sweet, honey disguises the bitter poison.
How could the love poison la belle dame gives to the knight be viewed?
As an expression of the vulnerability men feel when attracted to women. Rather than admit complicity, it is easier for the knight to suggest that he was drugged by a venomous woman, a victim of feminine duplicity.
Evidence of her duplicity?
“In language strange she said /”‘I love thee true””
Evidence of the knights’ possessive nature?
The knight encircles different parts of La Belle Dame’s body with a ‘garland’ and ‘bracelets’. He also ‘set her on my pacing steed’.
Suggestion of Belle Dame’s madness and as dangerous?
‘Wild eyes’ ‘long hair’,
What does the word ‘lulled’ suggest? (2)
- It could also be an indication that she is treacherous, a destructive force- as ‘lulled’ can suggest a way to calm someones suspicions by deceptions. Therefore, the knight is a passive victim and the woman dominant.
- More innocently, to soothe with soft sounds as a mother might soothe her child to sleep.
What confirms the lady’s responsibility for the knight’s condition?
The dream in which he saw ‘pale kings, princes and warriors’, who claim ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci/ Hath thee in thrall!’
What features of a traditional, formal ballad does Keats use?
Frequent repetition.
How does Keats alter the traditional structure of a ballad?
By shortening the last line of each stanza
What impact does shortening the last line of each stanza have?
It creates the effect of the stanza being abruptly cut off, of something being absent or withheld. In fact, we are given little information about anything in the poem- it is all very ambiguous.
Where is there suggestion that the belle dame is unhappy?
‘she wept, and sigh’d full sore’
Why could the knight’s interpretation and version of events be questioned?
She speaks in ‘language strange’- how can he be sure she said ‘I love thee true’? It would seem that he translates what she says into what he wants to hear.
Where is the syntax ambiguous?
‘She look’d at me as she did love’- does he mean she looked at him while she loved him or she looked at him as though she did love him?
Use of setting
Keats uses decaying imagery, ‘the sedge has withered from the lake’ as to highlight the man’s isolation and loneliness. Furthermore, the withering of nature also acts as a sense if forebodemant at the man’s eventual fate and isolation.
How does Keat’s use of nature serve as a warning? +1 quote
To convey the hidden dangers within nature. By representing the woman as a fairy like woman with characteristics of innocence and purity associated with nature perhaps evokes a sense of pity also for the woman and the hidden implied warning within the narrative that nature can also be dangerous. ‘Honey wild’
