La Belle Dame Sans Merci Flashcards Preview

A/SHHS 12B English Literature > La Belle Dame Sans Merci > Flashcards

Flashcards in La Belle Dame Sans Merci Deck (18)
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1
Q

Which literary movement does John Keats belong to?

A

THE ROMANTICS <3<3<3<3

2
Q

What form is La Belle written in?

A

A Ballad

3
Q

What does the title of La Belle translate to?

A

The beautiful woman without mercy

4
Q

How does La Belle subvert the typical romantic ideal of beauty as truth/ goodness?

A

The woman’s beauty is actually a mask for deception.

5
Q

How does La Belle present love as unchanging and something which stunts a persons growth

A

Cyclic structure of the ballad

Imagery of illness and frailty

6
Q

Why does Keats write about illness?

A

He was in the throws of TB when writing it

7
Q

What does the woman represent in La Belle? (x5)

A
A personification of death or TB
Unreality of love
Female power/ female deception
Metaphor for drug abuse
The Muse of poetry
8
Q

Quotes that show emasculation of love in La Belle (x4)

A

“Alone and palely loitering”
“On thy cheek a fading rose”
“Pale warriors, death pale”
“She lulled me to sleep”

9
Q

Quotes about love as supernatural/ fantastical in La Belle (x5)

A

“A faery’s child…her foot was light…her eyes were wild”
“A faery’s song”
“She took me to her elfin grot”
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci thee hath in thrall”
“No birds sing”

10
Q

Quotes of male aggression/ toxic masculinity in La Belle (x3)

A

“I made a garland for her head, and bracelets too”
“I set her on my pacing steed”
“Knight at arms”

11
Q

Romantic ideals reflected in Keats’ poetry

A

Beauty of nature
relationship between imagination and creativity
Passionate responses to beauty and suffering
Transience of human life

12
Q

How does La Belle show Keats’ fear of falling in love?

A

extended male fantasy- blaming a woman for everything
Supernatural imagery
Ballad form- often had a warning or a moral

13
Q

Quotes about female power in La Belle (x4)

A

“She lulled me to sleep”
“Found me roots of relish sweet and honey wild”
“Her wild, wild eyes”
“Alone and palely loitering”

14
Q

Example of use of similes too create doubt about the speakers intentions, and the woman’s thoughts in La Belle

A

“She looked at me as she did love”

15
Q

How Keats’ creates doubts about the narrators reliability

A

Similes- indirect expression of woman’s views
Lack of female voice
Female passivity and weakness

16
Q

Key structural techniques in La Belle and their effect

A

Cyclic structure- sense of unending, or the power of love (infatuation) to stop time/ growth

Short final line to each stanza- creates a sense of unbalance, disrupts fluidity to hint at the unnatural

17
Q

What does Keats say about love in La Belle Dame Sans Merci?

A

Love as emasculating/ an illness
Love as trance-like or a dream- fleeting
Fear of falling in love
Love as cyclic, cause of deterioration

18
Q

What is the plot of La Belle Dame Sans Merci?

A

A knight recounts a romantic encounter with a fey that ended with a dark vision of her other lovers crying out for help. The encounter leaves him visibly weakened/ ill