Theme of Beauty in La Belle Dame Sans Merci Essay

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.

From the first few lines Keats alludes to the great romances of the previous ages as opposed to William Shakespeare's great tragedies. While it could be discerned that Keats is referring to his poem

As the foreign element in the poem, she already emanates a curious vibe of exotic fantasy displayed from her "strange" language (23), such an impression then leading to her positioning as the Other whom which the knight fails to comprehend. But she is also mystical in that her very being is subjected to unfixable definition. The lady is attributed to be both “belle dame” and “beldame”, her dual identity presenting as a “macaronic pun” (Williams 214), as a bilingual mix of words operating within the same context. While “belle dame” in French depicts a pleasant beautiful maiden, the English version “beldame” contradictorily points towards the figuration of a malicious old hag. Thus, the lady’s name itself already signifies a kind of perplexing fluidity. Her true nature can never be clearly captured by the knight, akin to how one can never grasp flowing water within the palm. Right from the start, she is already portrayed as an elusive Dionysian entity which cannot be readily subsumed within the Establishment’s fixed Apollonian codes of understanding. The knight regards her brows as washed out with “feverish dew" (10). Dew holds a refreshing quality and symbolically represents the vitality of renewal. However, this pristineness is quickly being transmuted into that which enacts agony and

was pleased by all men, and the Duke was struggling to find a way to

Keats introduces the summation of the poem early, in the second part of the last line in quatrain four. This choice reflects how great his impending death weighs on his mind. In the final couplet, Keats’s dark views of love leave him to “stand alone” and not experience the love mentioned in the previous quatrain. Of course, “alone” might not necessarily mean devoid of love; he could mean that he’s alone because of his hopeless thoughts on the subject. Or he could mean he is alone because he does not have the emblems “Love” and “Fame.” “Wide world” dwarfs him, making it even sadder that in spite of all the vast opportunities he has had with different cultures,

Although the basic mood and intended idea of these poems may seem to be the same, the two ways in which these two messages are portrayed are different from one another through diction and imagery. Keats’ poem is much more romantic and enchanting, using eloquent symbols containing imagery such as when he says, “When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face, /Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,”(5-6). This complex symbol of imagery, complemented by the use of the word “love” twice in the poem, contribute to the poem being characterized as more romantic. On the other hand,”Mezzo

The knight is the main character who makes a terrible decision of abusing a girl which threatens his life. The queen spares him, but only if he gives the answer to what a woman most desires. She gives him a year and a day to find the answer. He meets the old crone who tells him the correct answer, therefore sparing his life. The knight's answer was, "A woman wants the self-same sovereignty over her husband as over her lover, and master him; he must not be above her," lines 214 through 216.

The poem depicts a tale of the conflicts between Gawain and the Green Knight, but has significant undertones and an overall dependence on the fierce hostility between Morgan le Fay and Queen Guinevere. Upon the reveal of Morgan le Fay being the orchestrator of the entire quest, the Green Knight claims that one of Morgan le Fay’s intentions was to scare Guinevere to death when the decapitated Green Knight lift’s his severed head and continues talking, after making the deal with Gawain. This conflict between Guinevere and Morgan le Fay establishes a strongly female driven background story, enforcing the powerful roles that women held and their relation to conflicts with other

Although at the end of the poem, the knight gets rewarded with a beautiful wife even though he committed a horrendous deed, the knight does exhibit the capability of reforming his understanding of women. Through his acceptance of the queen’s decree, instead of running away in cowardice or falling prey for women’s stereotypes, and by relinquishing his sovereignty to both the queen and the crone, the knight truly gaining an understanding of what a woman longs for.

The form or diction of Keats’ poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci, could be best described as a ballad, which is a poem that narrates a tale in short stanzas. An unidentified character that finds the ailing knight speaks the

Keats uses several different allusion is his piece. In the poem we see the use of allusions, personification, symbolism, and a simile. He commonly uses allusions, laying reference to several items without any explanation. Examples are the use of vague terms such as “charactry” which he uses to describe writing. He also uses the term, “garners” (Keats) which refers to farm storehouses.

As a result of these last few lines, we are reminded that the poet shows the Duke in a light of negative connotations. He is the type of person you should not be like in any way. He is a manipulator and an all around terrible person because of how he treats people especially his wives. This poem is a reflection on the poet’s belief about abusive relationships and people. This work of literature treats the theme of abusive partners in a negative light to show the reader that this is not an acceptable way to behave and that you should treat your partner with respect and

Furthermore, John Keats writes with a drained mood alongside his miserable tone. “When I Have Fears” is constructed with three different quatrains that divide differing rhyme schemes. Throughout these three different quatrains Keats illustrates features of life that he will not be able to witness and feel anymore once he dies. One such illustration is, “When I behold, upon the night’s

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

The knight’s personal recount of the lady begins in the fourth stanza. He meets the faery lady in a meadow. He seems instantly captivated by her beauty, stating that “her hair was long, her foot was light / and her eyes were wild” (14-15). The use of the word “wild” may suggest that the faery has a feisty, untamed nature. Throughout stanzas four through six, the knight appears to be dominant, as he states he makes all of the moves: “I made a garland for her head,” (17) and “I set her on my pacing steed” (21). Keats’s use of “steed” is quite peculiar. It could be taken literally, as in a horse that one rides, or it could be interpreted as an innuendo. The reference to the faery lady making “sweet moan” in line 20 could allude to an innuendo as well.