La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Question 1

“Alone and palely loitering”

Line 2

Answer 1

-Isolation and bitterness
-Knight has no purpose

Question 2

“Harvest’s done”

Line 8

Answer 2

-Summer to winter setting
-Sunlight to misery atmosphere

Question 3

“I met a lady in the meads, full beautiful - a faery’s child”

Line 13 and 14

Answer 3

-Love at first sight
-Unworldiness and magical
-“faery” = nature
-Admiration of her beauty

Question 4

“I set her on my pacing steed”

Line 21

Answer 4

-Control over her > societal expectations
-Sexual imagery

Question 5

“She took me to her elfin grot”

Line 29

Answer 5

-Subverted positions
-Sexual metaphor
-Magic, supernatural and otherworldliness

Question 6

“There she lulled me asleep”

Line 33

Answer 6

-He has lost control of himself as she has possessed it
-Subverted societal expectations
-Her powerful manipulation over him

Question 7

“On the cold hillside”

Line 36

Answer 7

-Foreshadowing
-Pathetic fallacy
-The torture she puts her victims through

Question 8

“I saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, death pale”

Line 37 and 38

Answer 8

-Foreshadows what will happen to him
-Her manipulation of royals
-Has a desire of killing the men she comes into contact with

Question 9

“I saw their starved lips”

Line 41

Answer 9

-Malnourished
-Tormenting settings and abusive
-Hungry to be freed

Question 10

“Alone and palely loitering”

Line 46

Answer 10

-Links to stanza 1 > he hasn’t developed as a character
-He is still purposeless
-Isolation and loneliness

Question 11

“Sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing”

Lines 47 and 48

Answer 11

-Hopelessness
-Isolation and loss of nature
-Hopeless ending