Poetry Flashcards
La belle dame sans merci - author
John Keats
La belle dame sans merci - year
1819
La belle dame sans merci - themes
Love
Death
Enchantment
La belle dame sans merci - form and structure
Ballad - love song
Last line shorter, diameter - knights life is cut short
Regular rhyme and cyclical nature - death is inevitable and inescapable
La belle dame sans merci - language
Archaic language - helps with medieval setting “ail thee” “steed” “thy”
Repetition of pale - Knight is dying “palely loitering” “pale” “death pale”
Metaphor of death - Knight is dying “I see a lily on thy brow” “fading rose” ”left on hill”
Pathetic fallacy- foreshadowing Knight death “the sedge has withered from the lake” “no birds sing”
La belle dome sans merci - context
Keats knew he was dying of TB when he was 24 and died when he was 26
“A faery’s song” could depict the woman as a siren from Greek mythology
A child to his sick grandfather - author
Joanna Baillie
A child to his sick grandfather - year
1790
A child to his sick grandfather - story
A 1st person child speaker, speaks to his silent aging/dying grandfather
A child to his sick grandfather- themes
Powerful emotions
Loss
Innocence
Memory
A child to his sick grandfather- tone
Nostalgia
Sad
Regretful
A child to his sick grandfather- form and structure
Shortened last lines - grandfather’s life ending
Contrast between past and present - sense of loss “you used to smile” “you take me seldom on your knee”
Final couplet breaks from rhyme - is the grandfather dead?
A child to his sick grandfather - language
Repetition of dad - reflect child speaker and how close relationship was
Vivid description of grandfather - emphasises age “old and frail” “lank and thin”
Symbolism of fire - suggests grandfather fire is going out, coldness and death “and when weary fire turns blue
A child to his sick grandfather - context
Emotional topic in this poem is typical of romantic plans in this era
Female poets were unusual at the time
She walks in beauty - author
Lord Byron
