IGCSE English Lit Poem - La Belle Dame sans Merci

what is the poem about

The speaker of the poem comes across a "knight at arms" alone, and apparently dying, in a field somewhere. He asks him what's going on, and the knight's answer takes up the rest of the poem.

- The knight says that he met a beautiful fairy lady in the fields.

- Finally, she invited him back to her fairy cave. But after they were through smooching, she "lulled" him to sleep, and he had a nightmare about all the knights and kings and princes that the woman had previously seduced - they were all dead. And then he woke up, alone, on the side of a hill somewhere.

what themes are found within the poem

death, lust, naivety, realm of magic, despair, vulnerability, gender, nature, loss

what is the structure found within the poem and its effect

-12 4 lined stanzas (12 quatrains) which could be symbolic of time and its passing

-rhyme scheme of ABCB conveys the simplistic language with repeated ideas and refrains

-it is written like a traditional folk ballad which makes the poem more rhythmic and dream like

what poems could the poem be compared to

-the last duchess (love, women, loss)

-hide and seak (threatening nature, loss, games)

analyse - 'The sedge has withered from the lake And no birds sing.'

-pathetic fallacy reflects mood with everything dying due to winter

-absolute language of no emphasises the loss of life with end stop showing the finality. It suggests silence to give an eery feel

analyse - 'So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, and the harvests done'

-'haggard' and 'woe-begone' have connotations of sadness while also relating to old age

-anthropomorphism of squirrel suggests hyper-nation and loss of activity

-monosyllabic ending with end stop showing finality

analyse - 'I see a lily on thy brow, with anguish moist and fever dew and on they cheek a fading rose fast withereth too'

-metaphor- lily is a symbol of death while rose is a symbol of beauty showing beauty is fading and his loss of women

-the rose fading also shows he is pale and gives a negative image with endstop emphasising this

analyse - 'I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful - a faery's child, her hair was long, her was light, and her eyes were wild'

-alliteration of 'm' implies her association with nature

-absolute lang of full implies the lady had reached the height of her beauty, she is perfect

-tricolon description emphasises her natural beauty and vivid imagery

-pronoun her gives the girl no identity

-'were wild' alliteration enhances the image

analyse - 'i set her on my pacing steed and nothing else saw all day'

-the woman is passive, showing gender depictions as she has no control

-absolute language shows the height of infactuation

analyse - 'she found me roots of relish sweet and honey wild and manna-dew, and sure in language strange she said - 'I love thee true'

-the lady is linked with nature with a tricolon which paints her natural beauty and wisdom

-sibilance makes the poem turn to have a sinister tone

-speech gives the poem depth

analyse - 'and there she lulled me asleep and there i dreamed - Ah! woe betide'

-lulled suggests a seductive process, it is what is done to a baby which suggests the women now has control over him while he is in a vulnerable state

-the caesura with exclamative depicts his fear and emotion

analyse - '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'

-lexical field with graphic imagery of illness shows a negative scene

-it puts the knight in a vulnerable state

-he has woken from a dream about all the princes and kings that the women has seduced and they were all dead but wakes up alone on a hill side

analyse - 'alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake, and no birds sing'

-repetition from first verse gives poem finality