Keats - 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci. A Ballad.'
- Created by: Holly8988
- Created on: 05-01-20 12:56
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- La Belle Dame Sans Merci. A Ballad.
- Form/Structure
- Ballad - narrative poem with storyline. narrative poems have to have clear rhythm or rhyme.
- about a siren/femme fatale who tempts a man towards his destruction.
- courtly love - conception of love that emphasised nobility and chivalry e.g. knights.
- Femme fatale - mysterious & seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers, leading them to dangerous situations.
- Is this poem entirely about an innocent man who is taken against his will or is he responsible for his own demise?
- final stanza repeats 1st stanza. Cyclical structure - no progression.
- "The sedge has withered from the lake / And no birds sing"
- abrupt, sparse and turse. Accentuated by blunt, monosyllabic words creating deadened effect.
- metaphor of death mirrors the knight.
- "I see a lily on thy brow... / and on thy cheeks a fading rose"
- lilies -> purity and chastity. Metaphorical lily is warning against being tempted by sex and the femme fatale.
- Rose -> love. love he had for her as faded as she abandoned him.
- "a faery's child, / Her hair was long, her foot was light"
- supernatural quality.
- Line split into 2 and mirrored. creates equal balance - pleasing to the ear. makes rhythm skip along beautifully.
- pleasing rhythmical balance complimented by alliterative 'l' sound - hypnotic, light quality.
- "and sure in language strange"
- paradoxical nature, either he doesn't understand her language but wants to be enchanted by her
- or he is put under her spell and he understands her.
- Men from courtly world of power and order have fallen. Banishment from both worlds as punishment and never return.
- Form/Structure
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