The poem is a narrative of an encounter that entails both pleasure and pain. The sedge has witherd from the lake, and no birds sing. As a whole, keats blends the living and dying, and correlates joy with sorrow and song with silence to demonstrate the oxymora of life and the reality of the mixed nature of the world. On a late autumn day, the speaker stumbles upon an ailing knight and asks what is wrong. O what can ail thee, knightatarms, alone and palely loitering. I met a lady in the meads, full beautifula faerys child, her hair. For his early critics, these features betray a cockney poets unjustified poetic ambition. Text of the poem o what can ail thee, knightatarms, alone and palely loitering.
It exists in two versions, with minor differences between them. They criedla belle dame sans merci thee hath in thrall. The knight reveals that he had fallen in love with a beautiful lady, a faery. The title was derived from the title of a 15thcentury poem by alain. The beautiful lady without mercy is a ballad written by the english poet john keats. Romantic writers saw the violence of the french revolution as proof of the failure of science and reason, and the suffocation of. He used the title of a 15th century poem by alain chartier, though the plots of the two poems are different. Who crydla belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall. He employs a fourline stanza quatrain which rhymes a b c b. John keats was born in moorgate, london, on 31st october, 1795. He addresses the poet as wretched wight roaming outside, all alone. Lines written in early spring william wordsworth english for italians. As i will try to show, keats used deadly nightshade because of its. And that is why i sojourn here, alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake, and no birds sing.
Keats, john 17951821 widely regarded as the most talented of the english romantic poets, keats, whose work was poorly received during his lifetime, could not have foreseen his later recognition. Like most of the younger generation of romantic poets including lord byron and percy bysshe shelley, john keats liked to write poems celebrating youth, sex, and beauty. It was while reflecting on this that my mind suddenly focused on the italian translation of belle dame. There are two different versions of this poem with minor differences between them. I saw their starvd lips in the gloam with horrid warning gaped wide, and i awoke, and found me here on the cold hill side. Related to this focus on death and horror, keats wrote the poem months after his. The poem, whose title means the beautiful lady without pity, describes the encounter between a knight and a mysterious elfin beauty who ultimately abandons him. Oh what can ail thee, knightatarms, so haggard and so woebegone.
It was first published in the indicator on 10 may 1820 and has since become one of his most celebrated poems. A later, slightly modified, version of the poem was. It tells us of the power of amour against armour, how a knight can be enchanted by the love and beauty of a woman and be made useless. The reader sees that the knight is depressed and lonely from his surroundings. After reading dantes episode of paolo and francesca, a dream. Ballads generally use a bouncy rhythm and rhyme scheme to tell a story. I saw their starved lips in the gloam, with horrid warning gaped wide, and i awoke and found me here, on the cold hills side. He was the eldest of four children, and believed, for a time, that he was born in the inn where his father had worked as a stablehand.
The first three stanzas of this poem are spoken by the narrator who is talking to the poet, asking him why hes wondering by himself and looks so sad. That year he would also fall in love with fanny brawne and by the spring of 1819 would embark on what was to become one of the most important sequences of odes in our literature, all written in a single year. The belle dame sans merci is a ballad wrote by keats, a famous english writers, in 1819. It consists of 100 stanzas of dialogue between a male lover. Keatss life and conflicts, his love for his neighbor fanny brawne, and his awareness of impending death are.
Keats was woeful enough as he wrote poems and letters to fanny. She lookd at me as she did love, as if she loved me. Write a poem that describes your first encounter and, like keats, the moment you realized they had you in thrall. Tf this poem is written near the end of keats life. The poem shows us how powerful a beautiful woman can be, luring men away because of their lust and desire. John keats parents had always had humble beginnings, and so rather than eton or harrow, two of the most prominent london schools, in his youth he was sent to john clarkes school in enfield. Its features both conform to and set a pattern for a certain type of romantic lyric poem. I see a lily on thy brow with anguish moist and feverdew. The sedge is witherd from the lake, and no birds sing. Oh what can ail thee, knightatarms, alone and palely loitering. Keats wrote the poem in a letter to george and georgiana keats, april 21, 1819. It tells us of the power of amour against armour, how a knight can be enchanted by the love and. Considered an english classic, the poem is an example of keats poetic preoccupation with love and death.
Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. I saw their starved lips in the gloam, with horrid warning gaped wide, and i awoke and found me here, on the cold hill side. Ah what can ail thee wretched wight alone and palely loiteringthe sedge is withered from the lake. Keats uses the socalled ballad stanza, a quatrain in alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter lines. The man wants to keep seeing the fairy, so he can have a wonderful time, but he knows he will end up in a depressing state if he does. She was so enchantingly beautiful i assumed she was the child of fairy.
I see a lily on thy brow, with anguish moist and feverdew, and on thy cheeks a fading rose fast withereth too. The interaction of oral and written traditions in twelfthcentury old. Sometimes death is ero ticised and explicitly wished for, or presented as an inevitable consequence. When you first heard the poem did you circle your answer.
The nature of romanticism of john keats english literature. O what can ail thee, knightatarms, so haggard and so woebegone. The sedge has withered from the lake, and no birds sing. The phrase was coined by keats, in a letter 22nd dec 1817, to his brothers george and thomas. The squirrels granary is full, and the harvests done. The poem is about a fairy who condemns a knight to an. Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, alone and palely loitering. This remarkable baillad written by john keats, narrates the fascinating story of a mortals love with fairy. However, when keats approached his publishers with a new book of poems, they hated the volume. If keatss intention was to reinforce the ballad conventions of the. Keats appropriates this phrase for a ballad which has been generally read as the story of a seductive and treacherous woman who tempts men away from the real. And this is why i sojourn here, alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake, and no birds sing. Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, 5 so haggard and so woebegone. I see a lily on thy brow with anguish moist and fever dew, and on thy cheek.
We have a mystified speaker relating a story to us which he has heard from a lessthanimpartial knight who has apparently come under the spell of the beautiful lady without mercy. The shortening of the fourth line in each stanza of keats poem makes the stanza seem a selfcontained unit, gives the ballad a deliberate and slow. Who criedla belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall. Situated at the right foot of the spanish steps, just a few steps away from spagna metro station, the keatsshelley house is a museum dedicated to the british romantic poets, who were spellbound by the eternal city. Think about an event that has happened to you recently and try to tell it in ballad form. Read the poem below and answer the question that follows. I saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, deathpale were they all. This was the year where keats would write his most astounding body of work. The poem comprises 12 stanzas and has a rhyme scheme abcb. Keats appropriates this phrase for a ballad which has been generally read as the story of a seductive and. They criedla belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall. And this is why i sojourn here alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is witherd from the lake, and no birds sing.