La Belle Dame sans Merci Analysis Essay

During a high point in medieval chivalric romance, both Marie de France’s Lanval and the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tell fanciful tales of knighthood, chivalry, and spiritual and temporal (courtly) love. Both Lanval and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight portray their female characters as possessing considerable power and influence, within the events in the story and in the structure of the plot. Indeed, the female characters in both works function as the catalysts of the events within the stories, and also as instruments for each author's conveyed meaning. While Lanval presents its female characters in an unorthodox reversal of gender roles, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight employs the female characters as moral and spiritual trials for the hero, Sir Gawain. I will examine how the fairy princess and Queen Gwenevere in Marie de France's Lanval present a reversal of gender roles as was traditionally understood; she presents femininity as powerful, inspiring, and morally dynamic (for a woman can be ideal, or she can be corrupt). I will compare this to the representation of Lady Bertilak and Morgan le Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which they are used to convey a “Biblical” warning for an ecclesiastical audience; particularly that of moral failure and the temptation of the flesh.

Thomas Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur,” and the Gawain Poet’s “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” are important works that should be considered when studying medieval literature. They both portray the style and structure of medieval romance. They also tackle the same topic of King Arthur and his knights, as well as share the same characters of King Arthur and Sir Gawain. In order to be able to go over these works and understand them, one must understand the aspects of literature of the time.

Marie de France, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the Pearl Poet share one important personal commonality—they all are products of the Medieval Period. During this time, men hold the power and dominate all aspects of everyday life. Women are suppressed and are expected to support men by learning and performing wifely duties, and attending to the needs of the men close to them. There is no opportunity for women to place themselves in positions of authority or influence without a man dictating their function. Although Marie de France is a woman, it is apparent in “Lanval” that she cannot escape the stereotypical characterizations that plague women in her era. She portrays Queen Guenevere as a villainous and vengeful woman whom is conniving and unfaithful, which is how strong women are perceived during this time period. Chaucer uses the Wife of Bath character to show how outspoken women can claim that they want sovereignty; however, through their contradictive behavior and ridiculous reasoning’s they are not capable of true independence or governance. The Pearl Poet confirms that women in positions of power, ultimately have evil intentions. For example, Morgan Le Fay is a sorcerer who creates the Green Knight’s condition in order to test the Knights of the Round Table, and potentially frighten Guenevere to death. All three of these authors use female characters with mystical powers to show that woman who hold any sort of power are not real, and ultimately

Long-form poems Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight stem from two distinct time periods containing distinguished cultures, values, and ideologies. The Anglo-Saxon age, where Beowulf takes place, was a melting pot of Christian and pagan values. Epic battles, gruesome challenges, ideas of fate and destiny, and personal pride defined their heroism. Centuries later, in the Age of Chivalry, heroes possessed humility, respect, honesty, and integrity. Beowulf and Sir Gawain represent their cultures’ ideals respectively. Beowulf’s masculine demeanour and physical prowess, contrasted with Sir Gawain’s nuanced mental self consciousness, demonstrate an incoherent, often polarizing depiction of Old English heroism, in which neither protagonist fully possesses the values of an ideal hero.

As the poems of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight show, women have always had power, yet not as overt a power as wielded by their masculine counterparts. The only dynamic of women’s power that has changed in the later centuries is that the confines and conditions in which women have wielded their power has become more lax, thus yielding to women more freedom in the expression of their power. The structure, imagery, and theme in the excerpts from Beowulf (lines 744-71) and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (lines 2309-30) support the concept of more power in the later centuries, by contrasting the restriction of Wealhtheow and the power she practices in Beowulf with the Lady’s more direct assertion of power in Sir Gawain

Keats was a key figure in the Romantic era in the first part of the 17th century which, according to René Wellek 's classic definition, sought to substitute 'imagination for the view of poetry, nature for the view of the world, and symbol and myth for poetic style. ' Therefore, Keats ' 'Ode to a Nightingale ', written in 1819, has an affiliation with the natural world, through both the metaphors he uses and his meter and rhyme. The fact that the poem is an Ode to a nightingale shows that Keats is addressing the bird in particular and therefore it asserts the link that is found in Romanticism between humans and the natural world. M. H. Abrams states that Keats wrote this poem, whilst reminiscent of a Horation Ode, as what came to be known as a Romantic Meditative Ode which is 'the personal ode of description and passionate meditation '. It is clear here that what Keats is passionate about in this poem is 'the country-green '. Keats coined the term negative capability to describe 'passionate mediation ' in a letter to

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem, The Knight’s Tale, the author encapsulates chivalrous characteristics in his telling of a battle for love. In its fundamental form, chivalry idealizes a knight’s conduct, both on and off the battlefield (Gregory-Abbott). Chaucer employs this “heroic code [of] bravery, loyalty, and service to one's lord” to illustrate the idillic knight throughout the narrative (Rossignol). Chaucer’s poem, The Knight’s Tale, exhibits the ideals of chivalry in the form of two knights, desperately in love with the same woman, and a wise Duke who embodies the voice of reason. Each knight upholds honor through compassion, troths, and heroism on the battlefield, despite their afflictions with each other.

The popular medieval romance, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” explores many aspects of the Arthurian legend, including chivalry, religion, and courtly love. Although the poem does feature many female characters, one aspect that the Gawain poet does not touch upon is the role and place of women in this feudal society; all of whom live under the objectification of a male driven culture. One might say that the women featured in this romance are focused on more heavily than that of other literature during this time period and that might be true; however, after a closer look the reader can see how it’s the little things that the Gawain poet does or doesn’t do that diminish the importance of the four main female characters in this poem.

At the end of Medieval literature a new literature was created. Women wanted stories where they could have a role. The women wanted to be treated like queens. This idea of courtly love-where a knight honored a married woman like he would “his liege lord” (Schwartz 1) can be found in Gardner’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Sir Gawain must honor such a lady. Because Sir Gawain honors a married woman, he struggles with being an honest and loyal knight.

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s, The Coming of Arthur is a long poem that explains a fragment of King Arthurs journey to becoming the king of Cameliard. In this writing the author takes scenes that may require a long description and sums them up in under ten lines, while scenes that need less detailed descriptions are explained in over twenty lines. An example of this would be the stanzas where Arthur and Guinevere get married. These stanzas could easily be summed into ten or less lines but Tennyson decides to take care with his words in this scene and explain all he can. The reason the wedding scene is so heavily descripted is because it is a representation of how far Cameiliard has come and a celebration of its strong beginning. This idea can be explored through events that caused the wedding, the significance of the wedding scene, its hidden symbols in the text and its foreshadowing to a great reign.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a classic example of the behaviors of a medieval knight and how the code of chivalry works within the courts and towards women. When Sir Gawain visits Bertiak’s castle, he respectfully treats the elderly woman and Bertiak’s beautiful young wife with the same level of dignity. “To the elder in homage he humbly bows; the lovelier he salutes with a light embrace. They welcome him warmly, and straightaway he asks to be received as their servant, if they so desire” (lines 973-976). The treatment of women is an essential part of the code of chivalry. If Sir Gawain had only given attention to the pretty young woman, then he would not have been abiding by the knight’s code of honor. He also keeps the code of chivalry intact when he says “Lover have I none, nor will have, yet awhile” (line 1790). Sir Gawain says this to Bertiak’s attractive wife, when she tries seducing him in the bedroom, which proved Sir Gawain’s loyalty to Bertiak, upholding his chivalric code. Honorable Sir Gawain demonstrates the knightly code of chivalry throughout the poem.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s romantic poem “The Knight’s Tale” chronicles the adventures of two ancient Greek knights and their quest to win the affection of Emily, a beautiful noblewoman. Bound to uphold the chivalric code of loyalty and honor of the time, Palamon and Arcite discover themselves at odds with their noble ideals as they battle one another in pursuit of love. Unable to reconcile the knight’s oath of honor with their obsessive and selfish desires, the actions of Chaucer’s main characters fail to uphold the basic principles of chivalry.

There are a myriad of critical theory lenses that can be applied and utilized to closely observe pieces of literature. One of these theories is John Keats’s Negative Capability theory which consists of an idea of “…when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason…” (Keats 968). Ultimately, this signifies that in poetry the emphasis be placed on the significance of inquisitiveness and the asking of questions of the life and scenery around one’s self, rather than placing emphasis on strongly searching for these answers. This theory can be applied to a multitude of works, but for these sakes and purposes what will be critiqued is Samuel Coleridge’s Kubla Khan. In a subtle

The French are all about preserving their culture and being individualized. They often take great pride in the French products and the French style, and believe in keeping the French culture “pure” so they also limit the amount of foreign goods that are being imported. But during the World Wars the French began to allow foreigners to immigrate into France to take jobs due to an increase in job shortages. The immigration from the World Wars added to the diversity of the French culture. Ever since the 1850’s there has been a steady flow of immigration into France, and now nine percent of the French population is made up of immigrants (Gofen 62). The break down of the cultures in France is eighty-five percent of the French population is Roman

The twenty-four old romantic poet John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” written in the spring of 1819 was one of his last of six odes. That he ever wrote for he died of tuberculosis a year later. Although, his time as a poet was short he was an essential part of The Romantic period (1789-1832). His groundbreaking poetry created a paradigm shift in the way poetry was composed and comprehended. Indeed, the Romantic period provided a shift from reason to belief in the senses and intuition. “Keats’s poem is able to address some of the most common assumptions and valorizations in the study of Romantic poetry, such as the opposition between “organic culture” and the alienation of modernity”. (O’Rourke, 53) The irony of Keats’s Urn is he likens