La belle Dame Big ideas, structure and form Flashcards
(4 cards)
La belle dame big ideas
themes of truth and deception - beautiful things are not always as they seem
the fragility of human life and happiness
Keats presents a cycle of suffering
La belle dame structure
The beginning and end of the poem seem to take place during autumn/early winter, but the sequence with the fairy/women in the middle seems to be during spring/summer
Cyclical - opening and closing stanza are almost identical - suggests the women will continue to entrap men
La belle dame form
Literary ballad - presented through the quatrains and the ABCB rhyme scheme as in English ballads the even lines always rhyme
There is a strong meter that drives the poem forward
the quatrains have alternating tetrameter and trimeter which create a sing-song pace
The first 3 lines of each stanze are iambic pentameter with each final ine shortened creating a start-stop rhyme
Poems to compare with La Belle Dame
My last duchess - power and control, The tyger - power, Hide and Seek or Half-past-Two - lloss of innocence/ significant moments of change
