“La Belle dame Sans merci” By : John Keats

(the beautiful lady without Mercy)

Jocelyn GarciaAngelica PomaresVan-Hang HoangTram Tran

Vocabulary WordsSedge – grassGrot - Cave Haggard – exhausted Loitering – sulk Manna – Foods sent from heaven ( foods supplied for Israelites in the wilderness). Biblical reference.Ailing – poor healthPalely – lack of interestWoebegone – sad or miserable appearance Granary – storehouse of cornGloam – twilight; sunset (last years of a person’s life)Woe betide- exclamation to express grief or suffering Hath thee in thrall- being trapped; enslave

John Keats• John Keats was an English poet born on October 31, 1795 in London • A few month after sudden death of his father, Keats’s mother remarried, but the marriage fell apart and she left her children in the care of his grandparents • Keats mother, Frances return to her children, though she died early of tuberculosis. • Keats was educated in the boy academy in Enfield and also trained to become a surgeon in the Guy‘s Hospital. • Keats had no formal literary education though he had published about fifty-four poems • Keats was considered to be a well written Romantic poet. • The summer of 1818, Keat returned home from a trip to Northern England and Scotland to care for his brother Tom, who suffered tuberculosis.

• There, Keat met and fell in love with a women name Fanny Brawne. • He had begun writing La Belle Dame sans Merci around the spring. • Unfortunately, he contracted tuberculosis halting it from publication. • He continued contacting Fanny Brown, but due to his failing health, it prevented him from getting married. • In the fall of 1820, La Belle Dame sans Merci was published. • Under doctor’s orders to seek a warmer climate, John Keats moved to Rome, Italy. • He was twenty-five years old when he died on February 23, 1821

O what can ail thee, Knight-at-arms,  Alone and palely loitering?The sedge has withered from the Lake  And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, Knight-at-arms,   So haggard and so woebegone?The squirrel’s granary is full  And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow  With anguish moist and fever dew,      And on thy cheeks a fading rose   Fast withereth too.

Metaphor: Lilies are associated with death; sick

Metaphor: End of a romantic relationship, but the rose describes the knight's appearance. The color was fading from his cheeks. So the rose  has a double meaning– it's describing both his "fading" love affair, and his pale skin tone.

Consonance of L, and palely is an internal rhyme with ail.

Metaphor: Granary is a store house used by the farmers but a squirrel would place it’s food in a tree.

“I met a Lady in the Meads,  Medieval Story

Full beautiful, a faery’s child,Her hair was long, her foot was light     

   And her eyes were wild. 

“I made a Garland for her head,   And bracelets too, and fragrant Zone;

She looked at me as she did love   And made sweet moan.        

“I set her on my pacing steedAnd nothing else saw all day long,For sidelong would she bend and sing   Sexual reference

  A faery’s song. 

Wreath made of flowers and leaves

“She found me roots of relish sweet,   And honey wild, and manna dew,And sure in language strange she said   ‘I love thee true.’

“She took me to her elfin grot  And there she wept and sighed full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes   With kisses four. 

“And there she lulled me asleep,   And there I dreamed, Ah! woebetide!The latest dream I ever dreamt   On the cold hill side. 

onomatopoeia

Alliteration

Go back to your roots and center yourself and it’s a biblical reference to the fourth horseman

He starts to wake up from his dream like state

“I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;They cried, ’La belle dame sans merci  Hath thee in thrall!’       

“I saw their starved lips in the gloam,   With horrid warning gaped wide,And I awoke, and found me here   On the cold hill’s side. 

“And this is why I sojourn here,   Alone and palely loitering;Though the sedge is withered from the Lake,   And no birds sing.”

Alliteration: Repetition of one or more initial sound.

Meaning: Kings, Princes, & Pale warriors were her slaves and now he is her slave too

His dream was about to end

Repetition

Sunset refers to death or the last years a someone’s life.

Interpretation He loves her, yet he hates herHe can’t forget about her, even though she caused him painShe crippled him, and he can’t let go of herHe is stuck in his own dream of wanting to be with her, but his conscious pulled him back to reality.

StructureRhyme Scheme: ABCB that is, the second an fourth lines of each stanza ryhmes. Ex: O what can ail thee, Knight-at-arms,    Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the Lake  And no birds singIn each stanza the third line has enjambment

Ex: I see a lily on thy brow  With anguish moist and fever dew,       And on thy cheeks a fading rose   No enjambment Fast withereth too.

Caesura: O what can ail thee, Knight-at-arms,The purpose of caesuras is so you can pause and

make your own thoughts and interpretations.

1.“So haggard and so woebegone?”2.“Her hair was long, her foot was light ” 3.“And bracelets too, and fragrant Zone;”4.“And honey wild, and manna dew,”5.“And there I dreamed, Ah! woe betide!”6.“I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,”  7.“Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;”8.“And I awoke, and found me here”Meter Its an iambic tetrameter,Iambic dimeter anapestic monometer Ex : And no birds

sing

Diction/ToneStanza 1 Alone, Palely , loitering indicates deathStanza 2 Haggard indicates tirednessStanza 3 Anguish, fever, fading, withereth indicates death.Stanza 4 Beautiful , light , wild indicates lively Stanza 5 Fragrant, love, sweet indicates pleasure and delight.Stanza 7 sweet, honey, manna, love and true indicates delight and happiness.Stanza 8 wept, sighed sore, shut, wild Indicates grief of losing a loved one

Diction/Tone (Cont.)Stanza 9:asleep, dreamed, Woe betide, cold indicates grief and deathStanza 10:death pale indicates deathStanza 11: gloam, horrid, warning, starved, cold indicates obsession and depression Stanza 12: alone palely loitering withered indicates lost and diminishing

Theme• A devastation of loosing a love one, and becoming obsessed of the person who is no longer there • Unable to let go of someone even though you know that they have hurt you

The end