On a late autumn day, the speaker stumbles upon an ailing knight and asks what is wrong. Ah what can ail thee wretched wight alone and palely loiteringthe sedge is withered from the lake. The poem comprises 12 stanzas and has a rhyme scheme abcb. I see a lily on thy brow with anguish moist and fever dew, and on thy cheek. The sedge has witherd from the lake, and no birds sing. Romantic writers saw the violence of the french revolution as proof of the failure of science and reason, and the suffocation of. The original version appeared in a letter keats wrote to his brother in america, dated wednesday 21 april 1819.
The reader sees that the knight is depressed and lonely from his surroundings. She was so enchantingly beautiful i assumed she was the child of fairy. And this is why i sojourn here alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is witherd from the lake, and no birds sing. It was first published in the indicator on 10 may 1820 and has since become one of his most celebrated poems. 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. They criedla belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall. 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. O what can ail thee, knightatarms, so haggard and so woebegone. Keats was woeful enough as he wrote poems and letters to fanny. There are two different versions of this poem with minor differences between them. The title was derived from the title of a 15thcentury poem by alain.
John keats was born in moorgate, london, on 31st october, 1795. The sedge has withered from the lake, and no birds sing. The poem shows us how powerful a beautiful woman can be, luring men away because of their lust and desire. 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. A later, slightly modified, version of the poem was. And that is why i sojourn here, alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake, and no birds sing. I saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, deathpale were they all. He employs a fourline stanza quatrain which rhymes a b c b. Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, 5 so haggard and so woebegone. He addresses the poet as wretched wight roaming outside, all alone. Tf this poem is written near the end of keats life. Keats uses the socalled ballad stanza, a quatrain in alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter lines. The sedge is witherd from the lake, and no birds sing.
Oh what can ail thee, knightatarms, alone and palely loitering. 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. O what can ail thee, knightatarms, alone and palely loitering. 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. 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. 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. Who criedla belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall. The beautiful lady without mercy is a ballad written by the english poet john keats. 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. Lines written in early spring william wordsworth english for italians. I met a lady in the meads, full beautifula faerys child, her hair. It presents the strange way and manners of these enchantresses who use to make fool of men. 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. 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. Write a poem that describes your first encounter and, like keats, the moment you realized they had you in thrall. 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. He used the title of a 15th century poem by alain chartier, though the plots of the two poems are different. As i will try to show, keats used deadly nightshade because of its. It was while reflecting on this that my mind suddenly focused on the italian translation of belle dame. Keats wrote the poem in a letter to george and georgiana keats, april 21, 1819. 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. And this is why i sojourn here, alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake, and no birds sing.
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 belle dame sans merci is a ballad wrote by keats, a famous english writers, in 1819. Keatss life and conflicts, his love for his neighbor fanny brawne, and his awareness of impending death are. It exists in two versions, with minor differences between them. Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, alone and palely loitering. It consists of 100 stanzas of dialogue between a male lover. The nature of romanticism of john keats english literature. She lookd at me as she did love, as if she loved me. The interaction of oral and written traditions in twelfthcentury old. 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. Who crydla belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall. Keats appropriates this phrase for a ballad which has been generally read as the story of a seductive and. It tells us of the power of amour against armour, how a knight can be enchanted by the love and. 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.
Text of the poem o what can ail thee, knightatarms, alone and palely loitering. Ballads generally use a bouncy rhythm and rhyme scheme to tell a story. 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. For his early critics, these features betray a cockney poets unjustified poetic ambition. I see a lily on thy brow, with anguish moist and feverdew, and on thy cheeks a fading rose fast withereth too. 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. Read the poem below and answer the question that follows. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. After reading dantes episode of paolo and francesca, a dream. The poem is a narrative of an encounter that entails both pleasure and pain. I see a lily on thy brow with anguish moist and feverdew. Oh what can ail thee, knightatarms, so haggard and so woebegone. 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.
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