La Belle Dame sans Merci

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La Belle Dame sans Merci

• Members
• Introduction------------------------------------Sa
  m
• Paraphrase-----------------------------------Cecil
  e
• Vocabulary-----------------------------------Cecil
  e
• Diction-----------------------------------------Ja
  mie
• Speaker/Listener----------------------------Kate
• Structure--------------------------------------Sam
  
• Special patterns----------------------SamJamie
• Metaphor,Contrast, Imagery-----Christine
• Romantic imitation of antique forms
  Ballad----Bewing
• Conclusion-----------------------------------Cecil
  e

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Introduction

• The Title
• The title was taken from an old French court poem
  by Alain Chartier. Keats wrote the poem on April
  21,1819. It appears in the course of a letter to
  his brother George. At the time, Keats was upset
  over a trap that had been played on his brother.
  He was undecided about whether to enter into a
  relationship with Fanny Brawne then. All these
  experiences probably went into the making of this
  powerful ballad.
• http//www.kobe-c.ac.jp/watanabe/seminar/1998/yam
  amura.htm

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• The Story
• The questioner meets a knight. The man has been
  hanging around there for long, and is obviously
  pale. The knight says he had met a beautiful,
  wild-looking lady in a meadow. He pleased her
  with flowers. She looked as if she loved him. He
  gave her his horse to ride, and he walked beside
  her. He cared about nothing but her, because she
  leaned over in his face and sang a mysterious
  song. She spoke a language he could not
  understand, but he was confident she said she
  loved him. He kissed her to comfort her, and then
  fell asleep. He dreamed of a host of kings,
  princes, and warriors, all pale as death. They
  cried out a terrible warningshe is the beautiful
  lady without mercy. And now he was her slave.
  After he woke up, the lady was gone, and the
  knight was left on the cold hill side. Finally,
  he kept on wandering around palely.

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Paraphrase

• O knight-at-arm, what can cause pain to you,
  hanging around alone and palely?
• The reed has withered from the lake, and there is
  no bird singing.
• O ! knight-at arm, what can cause the pain to
  you, so pale and so in your countenance? The
  squirrel s barn is full, and the harvest has
  finished.
• I see your brow just like lily, with painful
  moist and fever dew, and on your cheeks, like a
  rose is fading fast.
• You said
• I met a beautiful lady in the meadow, as a
  fairys child, she has long hair, light
  footsteps, and her eyes are wild.

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• I made a garland for her head, bracelets, and
  fragrant belt of flower. She looks at me, her
  sweet moan made me feel that she likes me.
• She sat on my horse, roaming around. Shes
  singing the fairys song and bending on me, I
  couldnt see anything all day long.
• She found some relish roots, wild honey, and
  sweet dew, then she gave to me and said some
  strange words like this I love you truly.
• She took me to the elfs cave, she began to wept
  and sighed painfully. I closed her wild eyes and
  console her with my kisses.
• She calmed me and let me fell asleep. While
  sleeping, I had a terrible dream, on the cold
  hill side.
• In the dream, I saw a kings and a princes, they
  told me with their deadly pale face oh, you are
  in the controlled of La Belle Dame sans Merci
• And I saw their starved lips telling me the
  horrid warning. Then I woke, and you found me
  here, on the cold hills side.
• And this is the reason I stay in here, roaming
  here longing and palely. Though the reed has
  withered from the lake, and theres no birds
  singing.

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Vocabulary

• Knights description
• Knighta man given a rank of honor by a British
  king or queen because of his special
  achievements, and who has the right to be called
  Sir, or (in the past) a man of high social
  position trained to fight as a soldier on a
  horse.
• EG. He hopes to be made a knight for his work at
  the Bank of England. knights in black armor.
• Armsweapons and equipment used to kill and
  injure people.
• Fevera state of great excitement.
• EG. The whole country seems to be in the grip of
  football fever.
• 4. Moistslightly wet, especially in a good
  way.

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• EG. The path was moist with dew.
• Woeextreme sadness.
• EG. Her face was lined and full of woe.
• Begonego awayexclamation OLD USE OR LITERARY
• EG. Begone! he shouted. And never let me see
  you again.
• Woe betidesaid when there will be trouble for
  someone, or they will be punished, if they do a
  particular thing.
• EG. This is the second tome hes been sent home
  from school this week, so woe betide him if it
  happens again.
• Haggardlooking ill or tired, often with dark
  skin under the eyes.
• EG. Hed been drinking the night before and was
  looking a bit haggard.
• 9. Witherto cause, to become weak and dry
  and decay.

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• EG. Grass had withered in the fields.
• Gloamgloom, twilight
• Ailto cause difficulty and problems for.
• EG. The government seems to have no understanding
  of what ails the country.
• Loiterto move slowly around or stand especially
  in a public place without an obvious reason.
• EG. A gang of youths were loitering outside the
  cinema.
• Sojourna short period when a person stays in a
  particular place.
• EG. My sojourn in the youth hostel was thankfully
  short.
• Thrallslave.
• EG. Hes the thrall of worldly wealth.

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• Fairys description
• Faeryan imaginary creature with magical powers,
  usually represented as a very small person with
  wings.
• EG. She used to think there were fairies at the
  bottom of her garden.
• Moanto make a long low sound of pain, suffering
  or another strong emotion.
• EG. He moaned with pain before losing
  consciousness.
• Sorepainful and uncomfortable because of injury.
• EG. All the dust has made my eyes sore.
• Relishthe enjoyment you get from doing
  something.
• EG. I have no relish for hunting and killing
  animals.
• 5. Manna(in the Bible) a food which dropped
  from heaven and prevented Moses and his people
  from dying of hunger in the desert.

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• Other words
• 1. warriora soldier, usually one who has both
  experience and skill in fighting, especially in
  the past.
• 2. Steed a large strong horse used for riding.
  LITERARY
• 3. Squirrela small animal with a long furry
  tail.
• EG. Squirrels live mainly in trees.
• 4. Granarya large building for storing wheat or
  other similar crops.
• 5. Elfa small person with pointed ears who has
  magic powers in childrens stories.
• 6. Grotgrotto, cave.
• EG. Water trickles through an underground grot.

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Diction

• .

1.      1. sedge birds, squirrels granary
the harvest(12 stanzas)----- ?the natural
setting could attribute our imagination of the
knight much more. 2.lily rose (3
stanza)------- ?By this absorption of the
knight into the structural pattern of the
natural imagery, the
movement from a suggested but unstated
relationship of man and nature in stanza one
to an implied interrelationship in
stanza two has now been completed.
Fading rose present in knights countenance, they
are interchangeable, and that makes
the symbol more vivid. 1.   3. fragrant zone
a faerys song language strange(5.6.7stanzas)-
--- ? What Keats has woven into the
narrative, it appears, is another
version of the pleasure thermometer, a series of
increasing intensities that absorb
the self into essence nature, song, and
love. To emphasize the
knights surprising meet, the author uses the
magical words to describe what
happened.
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• 4.   wild (4.7.8 stanzas)
• The word in the poem is used four times to
  describe the beautiful lady
• and impress us the magical power of her.
•  5.   elfin grot (8stanza)---
• ?The vision is real thing originally,
  but it is totally changed into an
• ethereal thing here.
• 6.   cold hill side(9 stanza)-----
• ?The word "cold"(36) implies the
  sinister reality which the knight faces. Because
  hills are often where the fairies and elves live,
  it will give us a better room of imagination.
• 7.   warrior kings and princes (10 stanza)
  ----
• ?Warriors mean the worlds ills and kings
  and princes mean men of power. The knights
  inherent weakness in being unable to exclude from
  his visions the self-contained and world-bound
  mortality dissipates the ideal into which he has
  entered momentarily, just as the need for the
  world of men and desire to materialize the ideal
  destroy the fairyland.
• By withdrawing from the elfin grot, the
  knight has become a Man of Power the withdrawal
  is the act of reassuming his own self-containing
  identity,

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• 8.   sojourn ( 12 stanza)
• The knight uses the word "sojourn," which
  implies he will
• be there or some time.
• http//www.kobe-c.ac.jp/watanabe/seminar/1998/top
  
• M. H. Abrams, ed. English Romantic Poets,Oxford
  University Press, 1970.

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Speaker and listener

• 1st part from stanza 1 to stanza 3.
• SpeakerIn the first three stanzas, the
  speaker is the questioner(narrator) with a
  concerning tone. He is a stranger, we dont know
  his age, sex
• Function The questioner wondered what had
  caused the knight so palely and wandering no
  purposely, and described the knights physical
  condition(Alone and palely loitering) and his
  emotional state (haggard, and woe-begone). And he
  also points out the season-winter, from The
  sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds
  singThe squirrels granary is full, And the
  harvests done)it gave us the an impression of
  loneliness. The function of this part is to rouse
  readers curiosity that why and how this event
  had happened and then bring out the story.
• Listener knight

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• 2nd part from stanza 4 to stanza 12.
• Speaker The knight
• Function To tell the whole event between he
  and the lady. From his tone, we can see he is not
  frightened by his terrible future. Stanzas 4-8,
  he speaks with a joyful tone and shows the
  details, which reveals his strong affection to
  the lady. But from stanza 9-11, here he meets the
  king, princes and warriors in his nightmare, and
  the atmosphere was mysterious and dark. And I
  awoke and found me here, On the cold hills
  side. The quote itself actually shows how Keats
  brings out a cold feel to the poem at this point,
  which is ironic when we like to associate cold
  temperatures with loss. He was lost and becomes
  confused and worried he knows he will be like
  them, for his love for the lady. But eventually,
  from the last stanza, he accepts his destiny, and
  he does not regret falling in love with the lady.
  
• Listener The narrator

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Structure

• The poem can be divided into two parts.
• The first part from stanza one to three.
• The questions of the stranger to the knight.
• The work of the first three stanzas is to make
  the symbols
• a living part of that reality in other
  words, there suggests a connection between men
  and nature.
• The second part from stanza four to twelve.
• The knights reply to the stranger.
• From stanza 4-12, there introduce nine precisely
  balanced stanzas containing the main narrative.
  The progress of the knight in the first four
  stanzas (4-7) comes to the central one (8) when
  he is taking into the elfin grot, and in the last
  four stanzas (9-12), he withdraws from the grot.
  
• M. H. Abrams, ed. English Romantic Poets, Oxford
  University Press, 1970.
  

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Special Patterns

• The first two stanzas have identical patterns
  the first half of each addresses a question to
  the knight-at-arms about his spiritual condition
  and the second half comments on the natural
  setting. Also, the first pair (sedge and birds)
  are the natural images themselves the second
  pair (the squirrels granary and the harvest) are
  the materials of nature.
• Two pairs of adjectives in the halves describe
  the knight, the first pair exactly paralleling
  the natural image alone, no birds sing palely
  loitering, the sedge has withered. All these
  balanced details, equally distributed to nature
  and the knight, then combine in the third stanza.

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• The completion of the circular movement was
  marked by the fact that the last stanza echoes
  the first stanza and answers the strangers
  questions in the introductory three stanzas and
  brings the poem round full circle, so that the
  final stanza may be an approximate repetition of
  the first.
• The meaningfully balanced patterns within this
  main narrative (4-12) the action is perfectly
  pivoted on the central stanza (8), the narrative,
  the symbols, and the grammatical controls
  symmetrically rising to and falling away from
  this central point.the forst three stanzas(1-3)
  and the last three stanzas (10-12) are prologue
  and epilogue, the central six stanzas (4-9) being
  perfectly balanced by the distribution of the
  opening patterns.
• M. H. Abrams, ed. English Romantic Poets,
  Oxford University Press, 1970

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Metaphor

• Stanza 3
• lily, anguish moist, fever dew, and a fading
  rose.
• Lily means paleness and fading rose implies the
  knights pang.
• Moist and dew both show the anguish which the
  knight suffers.
• all the nouns can make us imagine the knights
  haggard look.

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Contrast

• Stanza 1-2
• The sedge has withered from the lake/ And no
  birds sing
• The squirrels granary is full/ And the
  harvests done.
• ?The knight is in an infertile spot, where
  the reed has become lifeless however, the
  squirrels winter storage is full and the harvest
  has been completed. Here contrasts two views of
  life.

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Imagery

• Stanza 1-2
• O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,And the
  harvests done.
• ? The knights haggard look is shown by the
  questioners asking and description.
• Stanza 4, 8
• And her eyes were wild. And there I shut
  her wild wild eyes
• ?Wildness of eyes is not usually used to
  describe a lady. It seems that the lady has some
  mysterious power to charm men, especially by her
  wild eyes.
• ?when we shed tears, we show sorrowful or
  joyful looks, but we do not usually have wildness
  in our eyes. This kind of expression in her eyes
  is no like a human being, so the lady is thought
  to be an non-mortal.

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• Stanza 7
• honey wild, manna dew.
• And sure in language strange she said-
• ? This kind of food is not easily got by
  human, so the lady is probably a mysterious
  creature a fairy.
• Stanza 11
• I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
• ? The kings and princes starved
  appearances seem to predict how dreadful and
  miserable the knights future will be.

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Romanticism

• The Romantic period in English literature is
  considered from the mid 1780s to the mid-1820.
  There are two generations in the Romantic
  movement. The first generation included William
  Blake and William Wordsworth. And the most
  important and influential poets of the second
  generation are Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelly
  and John Keats. Besides, the Romantic movement
  arose mainly because of the French Revolution.
  The effect of the revolution was extraordinary.
  At that time, the whole social world is under a
  unsteady condition. So, there are very important
  common interests and concerns cared by the poets.

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• The writing style of the poets are unique.
  Keats associated poems with dreaming. Moreover,
  some traits of Romanticism we can find in Keats
  poem are that there are fascination of nature,
  wandering, and the sickness as opposed to health.
  Also, emotionalism is the trait of the poem, and
  it means there is feeling expressed, not reason.
  Whats more, the poem was written in antique
  forms. He used his imagination, tried to elicit
  the atmosphere of ancient times. And there came a
  medieval type poem.
• ???, ????????
• Kelvin Everest, English Romantic Poetry

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Ballad

• Ballad is a poem (song) that tells a simple story
  and every detail and every connotation must be
  carefully considered. Besides, In this poem, why
  they acted as described is never discussed
  because it is also a characteristic of Ballads.
• Ballads are written in four line stanzas, and
  often the second and fourth lines rhyme.
• James Taaffe, Reading English Poetry
• Roland Gant, A Book of Ballads

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Conclusion

• The poem generates a kind of mysterious
  atmosphere, what happened we can not figure out
  clearly. It seems a love affair going to happen,
  but suddenly, it falls into the pain and deathly
  pale. The knight in his lifeless accountancies,
  roaming around and purposeless, as a
  knight-at-arms, he should like a real man, be
  strong or take responsibility of protection or to
  fight enemy. The image is he lost. He ever tasted
  the joy of falling love, then the dream, the
  prediction reveal the truth, the fairys cruel
  magic, and he was in her control. Who is the la
  belle dame? what did she ever do to knight? Or
  others? that is ambiguous. The poem makes us
  feel the deeper power under the love affair,
  something destructive, or frighten.

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Work Cited

• http//www.nouveaunet.com/prbpassion/supemat1.cfm
• http//academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/c
  s6/belle.html
• http//www.pathguy.com/Ibdsm.htm
• http//www.kobe-c.ac.jp/watanabe/seminar/1998/yam
  amura.htm
• http//members.truepath.com/onegirlarmy/Ibdsm.html
  
• http//www.denison.edu/hafiz_d/english214paper2.h
  tm