La Belle Dame sans Merci

Key themes and experiences in Keats’ poems are reflections of the Romantic concepts popular during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Themes such as the importance of feelings, experiences in nature and the realities of being in love. These key themes and experiences are explored throughout Keats’ poems ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ and ‘Bright Star’ through the use of a variety of literary devices. The theme of love is conveyed in both poems but they are portrayed in very contrasting manners. In La Belle Dame Sans Merci, the love is portrayed as courtly love and the suffering that accompanies love whereas the love in Bright Star is demonstrated as pure, innocent and eternal. In ‘Bright Star’, Keats’ presents the intense and passionate…

better understanding through a comparison. In addition to a metaphor, imagery is another element used to help the reader visualize what is going on in the poem as well as assonance being used to emphasizes different parts. When these elements of style are incorporated into a poem, the reader is able to have a better understanding of what is going on. How does a poet use style as a way to help a reader comprehend his or her poem? Firstly, when comparing two or more things a poet may use a…

“The poems show love to be a complex and powerful emotion.” Discuss the ways in which the poets have presented the different aspects of love in the poems you have studied. The poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci” is written by John Keats in 1819, he is a romantic poet and was born in England in 1795. The poem is written in the form of a traditional ballad and is presented with eight beats per sentence for each twelve quatrains and a simple rhyme scheme of ABCB. The French title of the poem helps…

Figurative language, when used by poets, conveys both central and subliminal message within the poem. In Keats poem, "La Belle Dame sans Merci", figurative language such as allegory, apostrophe, personification, symbols and metaphors reveal Keats idea that love's a source of destruction, death, and deceit. Keats also uses these devices to express the Knight's credulous and easily captivated nature and the three shifts in tone; melancholy, admiration, and trepidation. People who fall in love…

Keats’ La Belle Dame sans Merci is a poem about a femme fatale that uses her beauty to cause destruction. In this poem, the knight tells the story and describes the lady as the object of affection for many of the male figures. They all seem to be interested in the pleasures she can provide, which is an indication of her sexual power. The name of this poem is French and means, the beautiful lady without pity. Similar to the characteristics mentioned, the knight identifies the woman as a…

This essay will be written about the poems: La Belle Dame sans Merci, Once upon a time and Piano. All three of these poems have expressed feelings of despair. This essay will be comparing the poems and analysing the language for techniques such as language, form, structure and craft of the writer. The first Poem La Belle Made sans Merci is a ballad written by John Keats. The poem is written from the perspective of a man who meets a knight, waiting for his lover on the side of a hill. The poem…

Feminist Approach in “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Keats The most amazing aspect about literature is that it can be interpreted in thousands of ways. Because of this, I have chosen a poem that at the first glance has absolutely nothing to do with feminism, but more likely with a romantic ballad. To understand better Keats’ style, I read some other writings and I reckon that he has a lot in common with Eminescu: the love of nature, the subject of mythology (the poem “Hyperion”), the…

The setting of a poem often carries as much significance as the events in the poem itself do in regard to theme. Many poems, including “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Keats, and the Ex-Basketball Player” by John Updike, cannot be fully analyzed or understood without this critical element. * * * Keats’ uses vivid imagery to reinforce his theme of the dangerous and dream-like nature of love and women. The poem begins as the knight is “alone and palely loitering,” seemingly lost after his…

Women were simply needed to take care of domestic affairs and produce children. They were not awarded the freedom to work or further their education. In fact, it was considered socially unacceptable for women to work. In the past, society imposed limitations on women and how they should act in society, similarly, today, despite the gains of the feminist movement, female prejudice and inequality exists within society. Women are held to a new standard now, the “standard of beauty” which entails…

La Belle Dame Sans Merci and the Great Gatsby are two examples of a beautiful romance gone wrong- in both novels, someone ends up getting hurt. Both authors, although living in completely different time periods, are trying to convey the same message; that even though a relationship feels right, sometimes it couldn’t be more wrong. In La Belle Dame sans Merci, the knight-at-arms recalls the way his lover announcer her feelings for him. He says,”’And sure in a language strange she said- / I love…