La Belle Dame Sans Merci Flashcards
What is the significance of the title being in French?
Written in a language that is often associated with passion and beauty, and so it has connotations of love and romance
“Palely loitering”
Associated with love and illness - reference to Isabella which also uses similar descriptions
“Alone and palely loitering”
Description is at odds with the typical image of a knight - this line suggests weakness, whereas a knight is usually associated with strength and masculinity
“And no birds sing”
Lifeless environment - tragic
“So haggard”
Associated with age and weakness, again, at odds with the typical description of a knight
“The squirrel’s granary is full”
The squirrel is full of life which contrasts with the knight. This is also part of the pastoral imagery, and shows the natural cycles of life
“I see a lily on thy brow”
White, pale, ghostly. A lily is a flower that is associated with death, and this line emphasises his weakness
“And on thy cheeks a fading rose”
Pastoral image of death and natural cycles. Suggests his skin is white and sickly - like the sedge in the lake, he is also withering and dying
“I met a lady in the meads”
Reference to both meadows and alcohol
“Full beautiful - a faery’s child”
Fricative sounds which associate her beauty with magic and mystery. The word child also makes her seem dependant and disempowers her - anti-feminist point
Notes on the alliteration in stanza 4
F (“Full beautiful, - a faery’s child) and L sounds (“Her hair was long, her foot was light”) are soft and beautiful, which contrasts with the W sounds in “her eyes were wild” which shows her sexuality, wildness and almost animalistic nature, which is stereotypical of a female character (they are often either weak or too strong)
Significance of narrative shift?
Allows the knight to answer the questions posed by the initial narrator
“I made a garland for her head / And bracelets too”
Shows he is seducing her and adorning her. All the gifts are made of nature, which is typical of Romantic poetry
“She looked at me as she did love”
He perceives her as being in love with him
“Fragrant zone”
Reference of genatalia - he is sexualising her - anti-feminist
“I set her on my pacing steed”
He is the active participant in the sentence (link to “Into her dream he melted” in The Eve Of St Agnes) which shows his dominance and her passiveness. This also has phallic connotations as it is where his power and his masculinity lie
“For sidelong would she bend, and sing / A faery’s song”
Enjambment to show continuity. In this sentence, her actions are portrayed as being much more gentle, and the sibilance also adds to this.
“She found me…”
She becomes the active participant - shift in power
Notes on language in stanza 7
She gives him lots of beautiful sweet foods which contribute to the pastoral, natural imagery of the poem
“Manna-dew”
Biblical allusion - a food associated with escape and gifts from God. Possibly a reference to how she helps him escape from his life into a magical world
“And sure in language strange she said - / ‘I love thee true’.”
He is sure about her meaning, which is unusual since he claims she speaks to him in a “strange” language. The sibilance in this line adds to the mystery, and during the stanza Keats emphasises the shit in power ac control
“She took me to her elfin grot”
She takes control over him further. “Grot” implies that she has taken him to a secret, fantastical place - more fantastical imagery
“She wept and sighed full sore”
Sexual connotations of sensual elation, however, it also has connotations of sadness and melancholy. Deliberately ambiguous
“I shut her wild wild eyes”
Trying to control her - he is dominant in sexual acts shown by the fact he is able to control her wild eyes
“And there she lulled me asleep”
Power dynamic changes
“-Ah! woe betide!-“
Interjection of sadness
“The latest dream I ever dreamt”
Particular emphasis on the word dream
“On the cold hill side”
The cold in his dream is associated with negativity and discomfort
“I saw pale kings and princes too, / Pale warriors, death pale were they all”
Tripling of pale emphasises the plosive sounds which emphasises his fear of the deathly images around him. This line also involves all high status, powerful men, which emphasises the power of the belle dame
“Thee hath in thrall”
He is warned by the ghosts of how she has done this before - link to how Lorenzo’s ghost came back to advise Isabella
“I saw their starved lips in the gloam, / With horrid warning gaped wide”
Ominous and eerie imagery.
“And I awoke and found me here, / On the cold hill’s side”
Repetition for emphasis - shows how their love has become cold and they are now at odds
Notes on the last stanza
The last 3 lines all reference the first stanza, giving the poem a cyclical structure. This represents how he is trapped in his trance and it is likely at her fault. The lines that are repeated in the last stanza are the ones which foreground the lifeless imagery, which is tragic.
The poem ends with him in an emasculated state.
