Symbolism in "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" Essay

Everyone needs hope in their lives for the good times and the bad. Hope is an essential part of human life, which is sometimes symbolized into objects. Legend by Marie Lu is a dystopian story about Day, a slum sector teen criminal, and June, a wealthy military prodigy. Marie Lu uses Day’s pendant to symbolize the hope and freedom Day and June yearn for.

The similarities between the poems lie in their abilities to utilize imagery as a means to enhance the concept of the fleeting nature that life ultimately has and to also help further elaborate the speaker’s opinion towards their own situation. In Keats’ poem, dark and imaginative images are used to help match with the speaker’s belief that both love and death arise from fate itself. Here, Keats describes the beauty and mystery of love with images of “shadows” and “huge cloudy symbols of a high romance” to illustrate his belief that love comes from fate, and that he is sad to miss out on such an opportunity when it comes time for his own death.

Opportunity’s life shattered as soon as the first gunshot went off. All because of the other student’s actions that built up, until Opportunity couldn’t stand the pressure anymore.

Many authors often use symbolism to express a deeper meaning. They use the symbols to connect an unrelated thought or feeling into their literary work they are writing. Edgar Allan Poe frequently uses this literary device in his works. Symbols are many times seen in his poems and in his short stories. Many symbols are evident in Poe’s works “The Raven,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Black Cat.” Because Poe’s works are typically dark, his use of symbols is in a dark way. Although there are many types of symbols manifested in these stories, Poe’s works generally include a symbol that eludes death or the end of something and many include references of sight and vision.

Death perception is what sets apart the wise from the foolish and the sensitive from the weak minded; this statement is both true within life and the epic poem Beowulf. Many statements within the spectrum of death in the current world relates and dates back to this one poem, even more so now through the translation of Seamus Heaney. Passed along as a folk tale from as early as the 5th century to the 9th century, and then composed in about the 10th century, Beowulf creates a solid base for many of today’s present and worldly ideals. Countless themes are taken from this poem, but one theme that many people may glaze over is the extremely morbid tone of death and its purpose. Used as an archetype for the audience, the purpose of this morbid theme of death is to help understand and cope with mortality, especially during that time period. Accepting/ understanding is wiser than foolishly attempting to escape or cheat death as the poem blatantly proves after closely analyzing its purpose of discussing fate and death before the battles; choosing to always stand by good morals and actions; and the major significance of the main character’s death along with a couple counterarguments. By examining each aspect, the reader will gain the realization as to why Seamus Heaney decided to create this theme that he did with the direction from “The Beowulf poet [that] was captivated by the imagery of death” (Tanke 356).

In Marie De France’s poem “Lanval”, the knight Lanval faces immense cultural pressure to get married and have a male heir, as it is the norm in King Arthur’s kingdom. It may appear that “Lanval” is supporting the concept of the institution of marriage, as the story had a heavy focus on marriage, and the court nearly punished Lanval for rejecting Guinevere. On the surface, the poem could easily mislead the reader to believe this is the case, but without further analysis, the reader may miss the courting that the mystery-lady has provided Lanval, which prove why the text critiques the establishment of marriage, as her courting is very much of the inverse of a typical heterosexual relationship in the culture. This misunderstanding can be

As for the form, there are a number of poetic devices which serve to fill the poems with the necessary diction. As Lovelace’s poem is easier and lighter by tone, there are not so many devices, but still the figurative language is romantic and eloquent. The imagery is delicate and beautiful. The innocence and pureness of the protagonist’s beloved woman is described by the words “the nunnery of thy chaste breast and quiet mind”; the lover’s attitude is shown by the words “Sweet” and “Dear”; the rush and aspiration of the hero is underlined by the metaphors of “flying” and “chasing”. There is no place for regret or fear; on the contrary, it seems that the hero relishes his fortune, his obligation and the

The admiration of courtly love is no more prevalent theme in Marie's lais than on “Yonec” and “Lanval”. These two lais are showing very aristocratic views on socially states; love of nobility. A love that cannot be explained by a commoner or peasant that cannot show status has nothing to offer, for courtly love because a peasant has no chivalry. This courtly love is often secret in that a knight and a lady are not married to one another but to a different partner making the story adulterous. That secret at the end makes the story ecstatic and tragic; the adhesive of the story is the passion of love that is displayed making the store ecstatic and the secret is the tragedy that love cannot be acknowledged. The principal argument of this essay is to understand courtly love in Marie de France’s lais.

If great writers are able to escape the influences of their era and write in a timeless fashion, then Jeanne Marie LePrince de Beaumont is certainly not a great writer. Beaumont wrote Beauty and the Beast in eighteenth-century France during the reign of Louis XV. It was a time when the enormous bourgeoisie population was slowly growing in independent wealth, yet remained grossly overtaxed and starved. These peasants were systematically excluded from the aristocracy and the workings of government. France was a stronghold of the dying feudal-influenced monarchy system, in which the king declared himself an absolute monarch with the divine right to rule as

Furthermore, what would love be if one could not gather any satisfaction from this event? In The Lais of Marie de France the happiness of love is a very significant factor, it is the determination that drives the passionate relationships that flourish within the lais. In the story of “Laustic”, the lovers are never in physical acquaintance but seem to gaze at each other every night

Marie de France lived in a time when social graces were paramount to a good reputation, lordships and to securing good marriages. A woman was considered less valuable if she lost her virginity; a wife was subjected to her feudal lord, father, brother or son after her husband’s death. According to Angela Sandison’s article “The Role of Women in the Middle Ages”, this was because in the Middle Ages the Church and the aristocracy controlled public opinion and the legal system. These authorities of the times believed a woman’s place was in a submissive role to a man. In The Lay of the Nightingale, we will see how this social and religious hierarchy will impact the behaviors of the three people involved.

While the theme of love itself, may it be positive or negative, is reoccurring, Marie’s presentation of romantic relationships and their differing qualities can be considered a theme alone. In “Guigemar”, the relationship between the knight and his lady represents loyalty, and an ability to heal or cure. Yet, the relationship between the beast and his wife in “Bisclavret” demonstrates the selfish and traitorous behavior that can occur between partners, especially if one has proved to be adulterous.

Edgar Allen Poe is known for the various literary devices he uses in his works. One of the most famous devices he uses is symbolism. In many of his stories, including “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” Poe uses symbolism to further develop each story by the messages he writes between the lines. Symbolism is an important aspect of Poe’s many works, seeing as how it allows the readers to make connections within the stories. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” Poe represents symbolism through the title of the short story, the outfit Fortunato wears, and the Montresor family motto and coat of arms.

     Novels were created to show a very naive view in great depth. The Pearl is a novel in its most complete form. Steinbeck does this by conveying life symbolically. Through symbols, John offers the reader a clearer look at life and it?s content. He shows major imagery in four ways: Kino, music, Coyotito, and the 'Pearl of the World'.

With the speaker’s use of metaphors and Greek allusions, the idea of constancy in failed relationships is reworked to combat the misogynistic conception of female inconstancy. In Joan Kelly’s “Early Feminist Theory and the ‘Querelle des Femmes,’ 1400–1789,” she claims that female querelle writers “reject[ed] the distorted image of women” (Kelly 20) in religious texts and amatory poetry because women were often depicted as capricious “creatures” that men could not trust to be