Language Analysis

Question 1

Begins with ‘O’

Answer 1

Suggests pain - its an exhalation

Question 2

‘Ail’

Answer 2

Physical appearance. In pain. Imagery of illness.

Question 3

‘Knight-at-arms’

Answer 3

Strength and masculinity
Image of defence and protection.

This is subverted by the fact he is emaciated in some way

Question 4

‘Palely loitering’

Answer 4

No direction or purpose. Lost.

Question 5

‘The sedge has withered from the lake,’

Answer 5

‘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

Question 6

‘And no birds sing’

Answer 6

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.

Question 7

Second stanza

‘O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms’

‘So haggard and and so woe-begone’

Answer 7

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.

Question 8

‘The squirrel’s granary is full,’

Answer 8

Natural animal imagery. Industrious. Stores food for the winter.

Image of plenty. Food is available but winter is approaching.

Question 9

‘And the harvest’s done.’

Answer 9

Time of prosperity is over. Harvest is an image of fertility, ripeness and sustenance. No more growth. No more creation.

Question 10

‘I see a lily on thy brow,’

Answer 10

Symbol of death. Often present at funerals. Beautiful and delicate.

Question 11

‘And on thy cheeks a fading rose’

Answer 11

Beauty. Red. Life and passion and creation. Fading away - losing its colour and perfection.

Stepping towards death rather than life.

Question 12

‘Withereth’

Answer 12

Decay. Deathly imagery. No prosperity.

Question 13

‘I met a lady in the meads’

‘Full beautiful’

Answer 13

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

Question 14

‘A faery’s child’

Answer 14

Deliberately uses archaic spelling. Magical, ethereal quality.

Question 15

‘Hair was long’

Answer 15

Untamed. Wild. Like the wildness of the meadow.

Question 16

‘Foot was light’

Answer 16

Suggests she is a delicate and graceful creature. Magical. Causes no damage.

Question 17

‘Her eyes were wild,’

Answer 17

Untameable

Exciting and dangerous

Magical

Question 18

“I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too’

Answer 18

Imagery of restriction

He seeking to capture her- not literally but in poetry

Trying to capture the magical in the real world

Question 19

‘Sweet moan’

Answer 19

Erotic or discomfort?
Could be an oxymoron

Question 20

‘I set her on my pacing steed
And nothing else saw all day long’

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

‘Sing A faery’s song.’

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

‘She found me roots of relish sweet’

Answer 22

Subversion of gender role

She is sustaining him from foods her is able to procure

Almost nurses him back to health

Question 23

‘Manna-dew’

Answer 23

Godly. The inspiration is a gift from the heavens.

Question 24

‘She took me to her Elfin grot,’

Answer 24

Subversion of gender roles. More assertive.

He transcends to the magical place because she allows him to

Magical dwelling, sanctuary of poetry and imagination

Question 25

‘And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four’

Answer 25

An attempt to regulate or control her. Trying to tame her but she cannot be tamed.

Question 26

‘And there she lulled me asleep’

Answer 26

Soothing and comforting. Juxtaposition to ‘ail’ and ‘haggard’. Danger.

Rest. Contentment. Fulfilment. Escape into the dream world.

Question 27

‘And there I dreamed - Ah! Woe betide’

Answer 27

Place of imagination

Regret. Lamenting. The cause of new anguish.

Question 28

‘Latest dream’

Answer 28

Final dream

Question 29

‘On the cold hill side.’

Answer 29

Reminder of the desolation he once managed to escape.

Question 30

‘I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;’

Answer 30

Imagery of royalty. Conquerors. Rulers.

Repetition of pale shows illness. Feelings of loss.

Question 31

‘They cried’

Answer 31

Suffering, calling out in warning

Question 32

La Belle is a

Answer 32

Femme Fatale

(Seductive, lead men into compromising, dangerous positions.)

Question 33

‘I saw their starved lips in the gloam’

Answer 33

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.

Question 34

‘With horrid warning gaped wide’

Answer 34

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.

Question 35

‘And this is why I sojourn here’

Answer 35

‘Sojourn’ - to stay in a place temporarily. A place he feels he does not belong.