La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Question 1

Meaning

Answer 1

The poem, whose title means “The Beautiful Lady Without Pity,” describes the encounter between a knight and a mysterious elfin beauty who ultimately abandons him. And is possibly a metaphor for Keats’ battle with the drug opium.

-first 3 stanzas are one voice, 4th stanza is the knight answering the question

Question 2

Structure

Answer 2

-ballad
-cyclic structure
-Rhyme on 2nd and 4th lines
-iambic tetrameter for 3 lines
-12 stanzas

Question 3

Ballad

Answer 3

-creates rhythm and a sung-like quality(as ballads were traditionally sung), which contrasted with the poem’s contents gives a sad but beautiful feel to the poem

Question 4

Cyclical structure

Answer 4

-the first and last stanzas are almost the same
-the first one had a question, suggesting at hope for the knight
-but by the last stanza there is not question portraying that he has no hope

Question 5

Rhyme on the 2nd and 4th lines

Answer 5

-shows it is a ballad
-creates musicality

Question 6

Iambic tetrameter

Answer 6

-plases emphasis on the last line of iambic diameter
-when it brakes it brakes the song like quality a bit, suggesting not all is well and foreshadowing a bad ending

Question 7

12 stanzas

Answer 7

-like a clock, suggesting that line a clock had ends up back where it started, so had this knight

Question 8

Imagery

Answer 8

-Imagery of death
-magical imagery

Question 9

Imagery of death

Answer 9

-thought the poem much imagery of death is used, creating a morbid tone where it is

Question 10

Magical imagery

Answer 10

-words like faery, lulled, and elfin grot, create images of beings that are not human, and portray this woman as not all she seems, possibly she is entrancing him

Question 11

Language

Answer 11

-2 speakers, the knight and the person who questions the knight at the start
-Repetition
-pathetic fallacy
-assonance
-personification
-euphemism

Question 12

Repetition

Answer 12

‘Wild wild’
-suggests danger
-primitive other worldly state
-uncontrollable

Question 13

Pathetic fallacy

Answer 13

-the harvests done-must be nearly winter, late autumn
-cold hill side
-weather mirrors the knights mood
-setting description makes the reader question the border between reality and dreams

Question 14

Assonance

Answer 14

-‘so haggard and so woe-begone’
-assonance emphasises the pain he’s in

Question 15

Personification

Answer 15

‘Withered’
the plant moves away from the water, a life-giving source, creating suspicion and warning the reader of the unattractiveness of the lake.

Question 16

Metaphor

Answer 16

-the squirrel’s granary is full
-metaphor for the abundance of the natural world,
-attempt to cheer up the knight from voice 1

Question 17

Euphemism

Answer 17

-pacing steed
-euphemism for sex,
-even though he has placed her on his pacing steed he still cannot controle her