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.
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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 encounter with the Belle Dame who has abandoned him in the wild. This gloomy place where, “the sedge has withered from the lake,” and, “no birds sing,” symbolizes love’s fleeting nature and the very “life” it steals. This often short-lived “dream” leaves
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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 encounter with the Belle Dame who has abandoned him in the wild. This gloomy place where, “the sedge has withered from the lake,” and, “no birds sing,” symbolizes love’s fleeting nature and the very “life” it steals. This often short-lived “dream” leaves