La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Question 1

What is the significance of the title being in French?

Answer 1

Written in a language that is often associated with passion and beauty, and so it has connotations of love and romance

Question 2

“Palely loitering”

Answer 2

Associated with love and illness - reference to Isabella which also uses similar descriptions

Question 3

“Alone and palely loitering”

Answer 3

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

Question 4

“And no birds sing”

Answer 4

Lifeless environment - tragic

Question 5

“So haggard”

Answer 5

Associated with age and weakness, again, at odds with the typical description of a knight

Question 6

“The squirrel’s granary is full”

Answer 6

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

Question 7

“I see a lily on thy brow”

Answer 7

White, pale, ghostly. A lily is a flower that is associated with death, and this line emphasises his weakness

Question 8

“And on thy cheeks a fading rose”

Answer 8

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

Question 9

“I met a lady in the meads”

Answer 9

Reference to both meadows and alcohol

Question 10

“Full beautiful - a faery’s child”

Answer 10

Fricative sounds which associate her beauty with magic and mystery. The word child also makes her seem dependant and disempowers her - anti-feminist point

Question 11

Notes on the alliteration in stanza 4

Answer 11

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)

Question 12

Significance of narrative shift?

Answer 12

Allows the knight to answer the questions posed by the initial narrator

Question 13

“I made a garland for her head / And bracelets too”

Answer 13

Shows he is seducing her and adorning her. All the gifts are made of nature, which is typical of Romantic poetry

Question 14

“She looked at me as she did love”

Answer 14

He perceives her as being in love with him

Question 15

“Fragrant zone”

Answer 15

Reference of genatalia - he is sexualising her - anti-feminist

Question 16

“I set her on my pacing steed”

Answer 16

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

Question 17

“For sidelong would she bend, and sing / A faery’s song”

Answer 17

Enjambment to show continuity. In this sentence, her actions are portrayed as being much more gentle, and the sibilance also adds to this.

Question 18

“She found me…”

Answer 18

She becomes the active participant - shift in power

Question 19

Notes on language in stanza 7

Answer 19

She gives him lots of beautiful sweet foods which contribute to the pastoral, natural imagery of the poem

Question 20

“Manna-dew”

Answer 20

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

Question 21

“And sure in language strange she said - / ‘I love thee true’.”

Answer 21

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

Question 22

“She took me to her elfin grot”

Answer 22

She takes control over him further. “Grot” implies that she has taken him to a secret, fantastical place - more fantastical imagery

Question 23

“She wept and sighed full sore”

Answer 23

Sexual connotations of sensual elation, however, it also has connotations of sadness and melancholy. Deliberately ambiguous

Question 24

“I shut her wild wild eyes”

Answer 24

Trying to control her - he is dominant in sexual acts shown by the fact he is able to control her wild eyes

Question 25

“And there she lulled me asleep”

Answer 25

Power dynamic changes

Question 26

“-Ah! woe betide!-“

Answer 26

Interjection of sadness

Question 27

“The latest dream I ever dreamt”

Answer 27

Particular emphasis on the word dream

Question 28

“On the cold hill side”

Answer 28

The cold in his dream is associated with negativity and discomfort

Question 29

“I saw pale kings and princes too, / Pale warriors, death pale were they all”

Answer 29

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

Question 30

“Thee hath in thrall”

Answer 30

He is warned by the ghosts of how she has done this before - link to how Lorenzo’s ghost came back to advise Isabella

Question 31

“I saw their starved lips in the gloam, / With horrid warning gaped wide”

Answer 31

Ominous and eerie imagery.

Question 32

“And I awoke and found me here, / On the cold hill’s side”

Answer 32

Repetition for emphasis - shows how their love has become cold and they are now at odds

Question 33

Notes on the last stanza

Answer 33

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.