La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1819)

Question 1

Who was the author?

Answer 1

John Keats

Question 2

What was the story in LBDSM?

Answer 2

2 first person speakers. A knight narrates his encounter with a femme fatale character and how this lead to his love sickness/death

Question 3

What are the themes?

Answer 3

Love, death, enchantment

Question 4

What is the tone?

Answer 4

Super natural, melancholic, deathly

Question 5

Form and structure?

Answer 5

Ballad- love song
Last line is cut short- knights life is cut short
Regular rhyme and cyclical nature- death is inevitable and inescapable

Question 6

Language features?

Answer 6

Archaic language- helps with medieval setting “ail thee” “steed” “thy”

Repetition of pale- knight is dying “palely loitering” “pale” “death pale”

Metaphors of death- knight is dying “I see a lily in thy brow” “fading rose”

Pathetic fallacy- foreshadows knights death “the sedge has withered from the lake” “no birds sing”

Question 7

Context?

Answer 7

Keats knew he was dying of TB In his 20’s while writing the poem and his brother died of TB two years earlier

“A Faery’s song” could depict the women as a siren from Greek mythology- as they would seduce sailors with songs and would die in the water trying to swim to them