La Belle Dame Sans Merci Flashcards
How could you address structure?
Movement from present tense to recount - chronological order
Cyclical nature - 1st stanza mirrors the last, 12 stanzas highlights seasonal change, the use of the dream and how there have been previous victims whilst also suggesting there will be more
What language features does Keats use?
Simple language mirrors knights energy - near his death
Natural/ supernatural/ euphemistic imagery
Metaphors - ‘I see a lily on thy brow… a fading rose’
Recurring motif - paleness of victims
How could you address the form of the poem?
Ballad - moral lesson (quatrains)
Perspective of Knight - question presentation of women
Dialogue from knight and observer
Simple language/length of poem illustrates how the knight doesn’t have the time/energy as he is near his death
Both dream and form reinforce faery child’s cyclical pattern of life
How could you address A03?
Romantics - liked ballads, world of supernatural/imagination
Historical context - inversion of natural order having knight as ‘damsel in distress’
Who is the protagonist (tragic hero)?
Knight
‘Knight at arms alone and palely loitering’
‘I see a lily on the brow’
Question whether he is a tragic hero!
What is his fatal flaw?
Falling in love too quickly - is he uneducated?
Being a knight - her victims have his status
Is there an element of fate?
‘The latest dream … I saw pale kings … they cried - La Belle Dame sans Merci’ - his fate has already been set at this point
Is there a peripeteia?
‘And there she killed me asleep and there I dreamed’ - his reversal of fortune as their relationship changed from ‘as she did love’ to him ‘on the cold hills side’
Historical inversion of natural order - the knight is the ‘damsel in distress’
What is his hamartia?
Trusting the faery child - he is unknown to him
Misinterpreting her - ‘in language strange… I love the true’
The same error has been committed by other ‘pale warriors’ - is this a fatal flaw, something which is ingrained in these individuals?
What is his hubris?
‘I set her on my pacing steed’ - male dominance in physical/euphemistic way
Takes pride in his misinterpretation of her love, ‘looked at me as she did love’ - establishes his manhood
Male perspective - allows himself to retain manhood and pride by influencing our judgement of women
Does he achieve anagnorisis?
‘The latest dream I ever dreamt…’ - his moment of realisation comes too late that his fate is unchangeable and inevitable
Does he provide the observer with a moment of realisation? A chance to change his fate or is his already set?
Is there are element of catharsis (pity)?
Lack of motive from faery child heightens pity towards knight as his fate was inevitable and unforeseen
Even though he is another victim to her ‘lulling’ it isn’t overly cathartic
Death is imminent- ‘and no birds sing,’ isolated from humanity
Fear of understanding human condition - can’t predict everyone’s actions which heightens the level of danger as there is a lack of preparation, failing to question something when you aren’t certain and lead to fatal errors and potentially self inflicted suffering as it is an error on your part
Who is the villain?
Faery child:
Suggested in the title
Highlighted in treatment of previous ‘pale princes’ and the knight himself
The knight:
Restrictive use of nature - ‘I made a garland for her head,’ sense of male dominance and oppression of women
‘I set her on my pacing steed’
What makes the tragic outcome inevitable?
1st stanza in the poem - death imagery
Starts in the tragic outcome and ends reinforcing it - we know it is inevitable even before he tells his recount
Who is the victim?
The knight:
Victim of isolation - ‘and no birds sing’
Victim of love and deceit - ‘she looked as she did love,’ unrequited love
Victim of the faery child - her cyclical pattern of life
Victim of his status - loss of identity, victimised, degrading
The faery child:
Victim of society - women’s oppression, might be her motivation for men of high status, dehumanises them as a form of revenge?
Victim of her own nature - is that why she ‘wept and sighed full sore’?
Observer - is he the next victims if not there is still a sense that the knight won’t be the last reinforced in the cyclical nature of the poem
What happens in this poem?
Someone is looking at a knight who is on a cold hill side. Appears to be dying and tells his tale of how he ended up in this situation. He fell in love with a faery child who after some time together lured him into her elfin grit and sent him to sleep where he dreamed and gained an insight into his fate (like the pale warriors), which he is currently experiencing.
What is the readers response?
Blurring of boundaries between villain and victim
What is the faery child’s perspective?
Is he to blame for misinterpreting her ‘language strange’ - does he cause his own suffering by thinking he is in love
Perspective of knight - biased perspective against women
Unrequited love - on the knights behalf
‘Pale warriors’ elevate her villainous status
Does the knight try to establish his pride as he has lost his identity/status as she dehumanises/weakens him
Length of poem suggests his death is inevitable and so doesn’t have time to go into detail
Keats uses nature to reflect emotions towards love - it come and goes but ultimately it continue whether you are there or not
Sympathetic - victimisation it knight physically, metaphorically (historical inversion) and emotionally
Lost touch of reality - became consumed by a concept as he was blinded by love
Is is the loss of magic and being brought back to rationality that leaves him in this state?
What themes occur in this poem?
Unrequited love Pleasure and pain Love and death Appearance vs reality Suffering Misinterpretations Supernatural vs natural
Are there any moments of happiness?
From the knights perspective - YES
His time in the meads with the faery when ‘she did love’ and in ‘language strange she said - I love the true’
Is there any violence/ revenge present?
Emotional violence for the ‘pale warriors’ when the cry her name
Her actions and victimisation of men of high status could be a form of revenge - rebelling against the passivity/ oppression of the women
What type of tragic text is it?
Ballad - quatrains
Ominous tone
Includes recount
Inversion of historical presentation if a knight
What is the influence of setting?
Yearly/seasonal cycle - continues
Dream - mirrors cyclical nature of poem, land of imagination and the unknown, don’t always remember dreams but this is one the the knight will never forget until his death
Elfin grot - private, ambiguous setting
Meads - public, natural setting
Starts and ends in the natural world but the middle enters the supernatural
‘Knight at arms, alone and palely loitering’
What does this quote show?
Illustrates his status whilst also weakening its importance in the dehumanised depiction of his physicality
Palely - suggestion of decay and death
Alone - potential victim of isolation (from humanity)
‘No birds sing’
What does this quote show?
Lack of new life -
Isolated from the natural world as well as humanity
