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La Belle Dame sans Merci

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The knight says he had met a beautiful, wild-looking lady in a meadow. ... They cried out a terrible warning she is the beautiful lady without mercy. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: La Belle Dame sans Merci


1
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

2
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

3
  • 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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8
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.

9
  • 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.

10
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.

11
  • 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.

12
  • 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.

13
  • 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.

14
  • 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.

15
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.
16
  • 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,

17
  • 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.

18
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

19
  • 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

20
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.

21
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.

22
  • 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

23
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.

24
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.

25
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.

26
  • 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.

27
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.

28
  • 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

29
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

30
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.

31
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
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