La Belle Dame Sans Merci Revision Flashcards
AQA Paper 1 Revision
What form does La Belle Dame Sans Merci use?
Ballad
What traditional form of writing is the poem based on?
Medieval Chivalric Romance
What are the typical traits of a Medieval Chivalric Romance?
A knight in love with and pursuing an idealised ‘perfect lady’.
Who is the seducer in the poem?
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.
Who is the speaker of the poem?
They are unidentified and question the knight they find loitering on the hillside.
What is the significance of the term ‘loitering’ in the second line?
It shows the knight to be aimless, contrasting the usual depiction of knights in these form of tales as questing.
What technique does Keats use in the first stanza to establish a death-like atmosphere?
Pathetic fallacy - ‘withered’ ‘no birds sing’
The first line of both the first and second stanza is the same - what is the technique called?
Anaphora
‘____ haggard and ____ woe-begone’
so/so
How might the knight’s physical and emotional decline be linked to Keats’ own life?
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.
How is the knight’s state of being juxtaposed with the natural world around him?
‘The squirrel’s granary is full…harvest’s done’
What does the ‘lily on [his brow] and the ‘fading rose’ on his cheek signify about the knight?
That he is withering, dying.
How does Keats make use of fricatives in the third stanza?
‘fever’ ‘fading’ ‘fast’ all add a degree of pace to the declining status of the knight.
‘Full beautiful, a _____ child’
faery’s
In stanza four, what other features is the ‘faery’ given that make them seem magical or even seductive?
‘her foot was light’ ‘her eyes were wild’.
The ‘garland’ and ‘bracelets’ the knight gives the girl could be considered what?
Symbols of control.
What does ‘she look’d at me as she did love’ imply?
Ambiguity. The knight seems to be interpreting her love. ‘Moan’ could also be pleasure or complaint.
‘I ____ her on my pacing steed.’
set
‘And nothing else saw ___ ____ ____.’
all day long
‘A feary’s song’ links the girl to what seductive and tempting magical female creature?
A siren
What is perhaps significant about the lines ‘And sure in language strange she said – ‘I love thee true.’?
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.
How does Keats show a change in control in Stanza VIII?
‘She took me to her elfin grot’
How does ‘and there she wept, and sigh’d full sore’ present the girl?
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.
What does ‘And there I shut her wild wild eyes // with kisses four’ signify?
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)
In stanza IX, how does Keats communicate a change in power?
By having the girl become the subject of the sentence. She is controlling things now.
Why is ‘latest dream I ever dream’d’ significant?
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.
‘I saw ____ kings and princes too, // _____ warriors, death-_____ were they all.’
pale/Pale/pale
How is the idea of death suggested in Stanza XI?
‘starved lips’ ‘gloom’ ‘gaped wide’ ‘cold hill’s side’
The last stanza clearly replicates the first, what do we call this?
Cyclical structure / structural parallel.
Why does Keat’s employ a cyclical structure?
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.
