La Belle Dame Sans Merci Revision

Question 1

What form does La Belle Dame Sans Merci use?

Answer 1

Ballad

Question 2

What traditional form of writing is the poem based on?

Answer 2

Medieval Chivalric Romance

Question 3

What are the typical traits of a Medieval Chivalric Romance?

Answer 3

A knight in love with and pursuing an idealised ‘perfect lady’.

Question 4

Who is the seducer in the poem?

Answer 4

Arguably both. However, it is most likely the lady due to the siren-like connotations and images of death in the 10th and 11th stanza.

Question 5

Who is the speaker of the poem?

Answer 5

They are unidentified and question the knight they find loitering on the hillside.

Question 6

What is the significance of the term ‘loitering’ in the second line?

Answer 6

It shows the knight to be aimless, contrasting the usual depiction of knights in these form of tales as questing.

Question 7

What technique does Keats use in the first stanza to establish a death-like atmosphere?

Answer 7

Pathetic fallacy - ‘withered’ ‘no birds sing’

Question 8

The first line of both the first and second stanza is the same - what is the technique called?

Answer 8

Anaphora

Question 9

‘____ haggard and ____ woe-begone’

Answer 9

so/so

Question 10

How might the knight’s physical and emotional decline be linked to Keats’ own life?

Answer 10

Keats died of Tuberculosis and was often very sick. At the time of writing La Belle, he was extremely unwell and this could be linked to the state the knight finds himself in.

Question 11

How is the knight’s state of being juxtaposed with the natural world around him?

Answer 11

‘The squirrel’s granary is full…harvest’s done’

Question 12

What does the ‘lily on [his brow] and the ‘fading rose’ on his cheek signify about the knight?

Answer 12

That he is withering, dying.

Question 13

How does Keats make use of fricatives in the third stanza?

Answer 13

‘fever’ ‘fading’ ‘fast’ all add a degree of pace to the declining status of the knight.

Question 14

‘Full beautiful, a _____ child’

Answer 14

faery’s

Question 15

In stanza four, what other features is the ‘faery’ given that make them seem magical or even seductive?

Answer 15

‘her foot was light’ ‘her eyes were wild’.

Question 16

The ‘garland’ and ‘bracelets’ the knight gives the girl could be considered what?

Answer 16

Symbols of control.

Question 17

What does ‘she look’d at me as she did love’ imply?

Answer 17

Ambiguity. The knight seems to be interpreting her love. ‘Moan’ could also be pleasure or complaint.

Question 18

‘I ____ her on my pacing steed.’

Answer 18

set

Question 19

‘And nothing else saw ___ ____ ____.’

Answer 19

all day long

Question 20

‘A feary’s song’ links the girl to what seductive and tempting magical female creature?

Answer 20

A siren

Question 21

What is perhaps significant about the lines ‘And sure in language strange she said – ‘I love thee true.’?

Answer 21

The knight assumes the words of a language and creature he does not understand.

It could imply that that the narrator of the tale is unreliable.

Question 22

How does Keats show a change in control in Stanza VIII?

Answer 22

‘She took me to her elfin grot’

Question 23

How does ‘and there she wept, and sigh’d full sore’ present the girl?

Answer 23

A some form of victim and source of sympathy. She could be crying because of the implied rape (though she took him there so this doesn’t quite make sense). She could be crying because she loves him but knows they cannot be together or fully understand each other, or because she knows she is about to bring him harm but cannot stop herself because of what she is.

Question 24

What does ‘And there I shut her wild wild eyes // with kisses four’ signify?

Answer 24

An attempt from the knight to sooth her emotions, despite not knowing what she is or ever being able to because of her wild nature. (This could be loving or misogynistic)

Question 25

In stanza IX, how does Keats communicate a change in power?

Answer 25

By having the girl become the subject of the sentence. She is controlling things now.

Question 26

Why is ‘latest dream I ever dream’d’ significant?

Answer 26

Latest could be most recent - raising questions as to how he moved from the grot back to the hillside.

Or it could mean last - indicating that now he has left her grot he is doomed to die.

Question 27

‘I saw ____ kings and princes too, // _____ warriors, death-_____ were they all.’

Answer 27

pale/Pale/pale

Question 28

How is the idea of death suggested in Stanza XI?

Answer 28

‘starved lips’ ‘gloom’ ‘gaped wide’ ‘cold hill’s side’

Question 29

The last stanza clearly replicates the first, what do we call this?

Answer 29

Cyclical structure / structural parallel.

Question 30

Why does Keat’s employ a cyclical structure?

Answer 30

To suggest a prolonged and eternal suffering for the knight.

It could also warn of the danger of the girl who seems to have done this before. This will continue; she is too powerful to be stopped.