Language Analysis Flashcards
Begins with ‘O’
Suggests pain - its an exhalation
‘Ail’
Physical appearance. In pain. Imagery of illness.
‘Knight-at-arms’
Strength and masculinity
Image of defence and protection.
This is subverted by the fact he is emaciated in some way
‘Palely loitering’
No direction or purpose. Lost.
‘The sedge has withered from the lake,’
‘Sedge’ - a grass-like plant with triangular leaves. Typically grows in wet ground. Grows in temperate and cold regions.
The plant what grows everywhere is withering. Imagery of decay. Even nature is struggling here.
‘Lake’ - natural sublime imagery
‘And no birds sing’
Connotations of life and growth. Silenced no songs to be heard.
Monosyllabic. Lack of life. Devoid of fertility.
Adds to the fact something is missing from this poem.
Second stanza
‘O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms’
‘So haggard and and so woe-begone’
Begins with same first line (anaphora - creates sense of continuity)
Emphasis on the emancipation of his physical body. Exhausted. Weary.
Full of melancholy. Immersed in grief and sorrow. Unbearable pain.
‘The squirrel’s granary is full,’
Natural animal imagery. Industrious. Stores food for the winter.
Image of plenty. Food is available but winter is approaching.
‘And the harvest’s done.’
Time of prosperity is over. Harvest is an image of fertility, ripeness and sustenance. No more growth. No more creation.
‘I see a lily on thy brow,’
Symbol of death. Often present at funerals. Beautiful and delicate.
‘And on thy cheeks a fading rose’
Beauty. Red. Life and passion and creation. Fading away - losing its colour and perfection.
Stepping towards death rather than life.
‘Withereth’
Decay. Deathly imagery. No prosperity.
‘I met a lady in the meads’
‘Full beautiful’
Begins to remove his anguish. Serene. Feminine.
Begins to move the knight out of this melancholy.
‘Meads’ - a meadow. Romantic Bower. Flowers grow wild. Fertility. Growth. Breaks the inhospitable worlds that Keats presents at the start of the poem.
‘Full beautiful’ - image of perfection - immediately defined by beauty
‘A faery’s child’
Deliberately uses archaic spelling. Magical, ethereal quality.
‘Hair was long’
Untamed. Wild. Like the wildness of the meadow.
‘Foot was light’
Suggests she is a delicate and graceful creature. Magical. Causes no damage.
‘Her eyes were wild,’
Untameable
Exciting and dangerous
Magical
“I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too’
Imagery of restriction
He seeking to capture her- not literally but in poetry
Trying to capture the magical in the real world
‘Sweet moan’
Erotic or discomfort?
Could be an oxymoron
‘I set her on my pacing steed
And nothing else saw all day long’
He’s trying to capture the inspiration she gives and bring it into reality.
‘Pacing steed’ is a metaphor for his poetry. Rhythm and meter. He captures her and she inspires his creation.
Image of being consumed by creation. Enraptured.
‘Sing A faery’s song.’
Juxtaposition to ‘and no birds sing’. She has brought life into the world. Banishes the silence, the melachncoly and the pain.
Magical song, to serene for reality. Inspiration allows him to transcend. He captures a song so beautiful it could not have been created without her.
‘She found me roots of relish sweet’
Subversion of gender role
She is sustaining him from foods her is able to procure
Almost nurses him back to health
‘Manna-dew’
Godly. The inspiration is a gift from the heavens.
‘She took me to her Elfin grot,’
Subversion of gender roles. More assertive.
He transcends to the magical place because she allows him to
Magical dwelling, sanctuary of poetry and imagination
‘And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four’
An attempt to regulate or control her. Trying to tame her but she cannot be tamed.
‘And there she lulled me asleep’
Soothing and comforting. Juxtaposition to ‘ail’ and ‘haggard’. Danger.
Rest. Contentment. Fulfilment. Escape into the dream world.
‘And there I dreamed - Ah! Woe betide’
Place of imagination
Regret. Lamenting. The cause of new anguish.
‘Latest dream’
Final dream
‘On the cold hill side.’
Reminder of the desolation he once managed to escape.
‘I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;’
Imagery of royalty. Conquerors. Rulers.
Repetition of pale shows illness. Feelings of loss.
‘They cried’
Suffering, calling out in warning
La Belle is a
Femme Fatale
(Seductive, lead men into compromising, dangerous positions.)
‘I saw their starved lips in the gloam’
Withdrawal of sustenance, lack of nourishment but not longer given it.
‘Gloam’ - dusk - end of the day - no more light. Knowledge of the beauty makes the darkness more profound.
‘With horrid warning gaped wide’
Unpleasant. Disturbs his contentment.
Shocked awake. Profound loss. This dream is pierced and he is dragged back to the unsatisfactory reality he sought to escape from.
‘And this is why I sojourn here’
‘Sojourn’ - to stay in a place temporarily. A place he feels he does not belong.
