Keats Tragic Poetry

fatal love and loss

isabella - a love story doomed by societal constraints

lamia - doomed love from the start due to deception and what they want most destroys them

la belle - seduced, abandoned and leaves him alone, haunted and dying

murder and madness

isabella - brothers murder Lorenzo which triggers central tragedy which is her descent into grief and obsession

no redemption or justice

isabella - she is left to waste away in grief, her brothers flee facing no poetic justice and the story ends with profound emotional devastation

lamia - lamia vanishes, lycius dies and love and illusion are both crushed under the weight of truth.

la belle - knight is left alone on a cold hillside, literally stuck in a limbo of sorrow and obsession

romantic tragedy style

isabella - lush imagery and emotional depth heighten sense of loss, nature and beauty are used ironically against horror and death. tragedy is not just external but deeply internal.

lamia - lamia comes from greek mythology, the poem is rich in sensual and lush imagery as well as critiquing reason vs emotion.

reality vs illusion

lamia - clash between fantasy and rationality as lamia represents mystery, emotion and beauty whilst apollonius represents logic, truth and cold reason.

supernatural seduction and betrayal

la belle - supernatural woman who enchants the knight into a dreamlike state. adds a mythic, gothic tone and a sense of inescapable doom/

romantic tragedy in ballad form

la belle - a medieval ballad style with deeply romantic themes of power and danger of beauty, idealised love and harsh reality as well as the artist as a victim of passion.

writers context

early encounters with death exposed him to the fragility of life as well as how beauty and love are temporary. he fell in love with fanny brawne but they were never married as he was too poor and sick. Intense longing in his poems. tuberculosis adds sense of urgency and sadness to his work.

“I am a serpent! said Lamia, with a sigh, And she began to fade away, and die.”

turning point - Lamia’s nature is exposed and she disappears.

“A serpent’s arm, an arm that scaly is, Had she - no human arm, but one of gold.”

juxtaposition reflects tension between the natrural world and the artifical magical element of Lamia’s disguise.

symbolism

lamia as beauty and illusion with apollonius as reason

form - lamia

heroicx couplets - rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter. rhythm gives the poem a formal, almost theatrical tone like a classic tragedy. traps emotion in a rigid structure mirrors how love is bound to fail in a logical ordered world. tension between emotional intensity and controlled forms reflects the central conflict between fantasy and reason.

form - isabella

ottava rima - traditional italian stanza form. form has lyrical flowing quality thanks to rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter. juxtaposition between elegant musical structure and horrific subject matter. in moments of emotional breakdown or horror keats sometimes disrupts the rhythm. ottava rima blends narrative and lyricism allowing keats to tell a plot-driven story while still exploring deep emotional currents.

form - la belle dame

ballad form in quatrain stanzas with an alternationg meter from iambic tetrameter to iambic trimeter. musical dreamlike structure lulls the reader, just like the knight into a false sense of safety before revealing depth of tragedy.

“?She forgot the stars, the moon and the sun”

repetition shows how after Lorenzo’s death Isabella loses all connection to nature and the world around her. shows her total psychological collapse and the listing of natural imagery shows how much she has withdrawn.

“And so she ever fed it with thin tears.”

gothic imagery of isabella watering the pot of basil with her grief and ironically, it thrives. the basil becomes a symbol of her love and and her madness - beauty grows from death.

“Alone and palely loitering”

repeated throughout play creating visual imagery of sufferring. creates a cyclical structure that traps the knight in his endless sufferring. completely emotionally and spiritually destroyed.

“Full beauty - A faery’s child”

enchantment imagery with supernatural imagery shows how the knight is enchanted by beauty and mystery setting up the tragic contrasts between illusion and reality.

“Thee hath in thrall!”

supernatural chorus as the ghostly victims of the woman warn him too late as he is already under her spell. The word thrall suggests not just enchantment but slavery or bondage, reinforcing his helplessness and tragic fate.

basil

in many cultures basil is connected to mourning and loss. christianity basil is sometimes seen as a symbol of sacrifice or holy devotion, like Isabella is with her basil.