“They could not in the self-same mansion dwell
Without some stir of heart, some malady;
They could not sit at meals but feel how well
It soothed each to be the other by;”
They both ‘nightly weep’ because they are so distressed about the fact that they cannot admit their love for each other. Every night and morning ‘their love grew tenderer’ and their frustration grew because they had to bear this secret that was beginning to weigh so heavy on their hearts. They could only think of each other every chance they got. He would be working in the garden and picture her and she thought that his voice was more pleasant than anything in nature. Isabella is also portrayed as a very refined girl for the period of time. She played the lute and did embroidery, which renders her a very accomplished young lady. They were both very in tune with the others movements. Lorenzo ‘knew whose gentle hand was at the latch’ before Isabella had even entered the room. He would watch her from his chamber window. He was desperate to see her whenever he could and he could spot her from ‘farther than the falcon spies’. He wanted so desperately to see her and touch her every moment that would lie awake all night just to hear her steps on the stairs when she first wakes. They remain this way all through the month of May and had grown ill by the beginning of June. Lorenzo vows to tell Isabella how he feels about her yet he loses the courage and cannot.
“Until sweet Isabella’s untouch’d cheek
Fell sick within the rose’s just domain,”
Her ‘untouch’d cheek’ emphasises her innocence. It also reiterates the fact that she is refined because in that period of time she would be unfamiliar to a man’s touch.
She has grown ill and Lorenzo thinks that he may not admit his feelings because he doesn’t want to . He decides that he must tell her and at the least this may take away her anxiety. He says he will ‘drink her tears’ which is prophetic because she waters the basil with her tears later in the poem. The day Lorenzo is intending to tell her he is very nervous all day and his bottled feelings cause him to fail to focus on anything all day long. The passion he feels makes him silent and brings him ‘to the meekness of a child’. He was unable to tell her but Isabella sees how poorly he looks and she says his name. With just saying his name he realises she loves him because of her tone and her body language. Lorenzo is unsure or her reaction so he says that he can only ‘half perceive’. He confesses to her how he loves her and how his ‘soul is to its doom’. He ‘cannot live another night’ without knowing that she loves him. He says that her love is leading him ‘from wintry cold’. His ‘timid lips grew bold’ and they kissed each other. They were extremely happy and this happiness grew ‘like a lusty flower’.
When you think of a knight you think of a dashingly handsome man in peak physical condition. In the beginning of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” the knight is ‘alone and palely loitering’. He is without company and just waiting for something or to do something. He is in poor health and full of grief. He appears weak and helpless which is not usually associated with a knight. The knight is sweating and his health is quickly fading. He is doing nothing to help his condition improve. Winter is on its way because ‘the squirrel’s granary is full’. The squirrel has helped its self by preparing for the upcoming weather yet the knight has not. The story he told of the lady took place in the summer or spring yet it is now nearly winter so he has been withering in this place for a very long time.
Nature plays an important role in Keats’ poems. They set a mood and nature is used to represent different feelings. The location in “La Belle Dame Sans Marci” is very bleak because ‘no birds sing’ and ‘the sedge is wither’d’. It is unnatural that there are no birds. The sedge being wither’d is another hint that winter is quickly on its way. Winter is when the knight is very poorly and is love sick. Nature is used to imply he is ill as well because the voice says ’And on thy cheek a fading rose’. He meets the enchantress during the summer or spring. They are very happy and the flowers are in bloom, just as their love is. In “Isabella” nature plays an important role. Isabella loves the sound of his voice so much that it is more pleasant ‘than noise of trees or hidden rill’. Lorenzo used to try and watch for Isabella every moment he got and the narrator describes his attempts.
“And from her chamber-window he would catch
Her beauty farther than the falcon spies;”
A falcon is a bird that is notorious for having extremely good eyesight but Lorenzo can see Isabella better than a falcon. When Lorenzo decides to tell Isabella and loses the nerve the days after are described as ‘honeyless days’. When they finally do confess to each other Lorenzo tells Isabella,
“Love! Thou art leading me from wintry cold,
“Lady! Thou leadest me to summer clime,
“And I must taste the blossoms that unfold
“In its ripe warmth this gracious morning time.”
Lorenzo is using winter coldness to represent his pain and illness he suffered when he and Isabella had not admitted their feelings. He uses summer to symbolize the way he feels now that he has told Isabella how he feels. Once he kisses her their happiness “Grew, like a lusty flower in June’s caress.”
When the knight tells his tale about the enchantress you feel very close to the knight because him narrating makes it more personal. At the beginning of the tale when he first meets her you feel very happy for him but you share his sorrow as the story goes on. If the knight had told about the dream before telling about the day with the woman I think his story would have lost some impact and the lady would be seen more as a femme fatale.
Lorenzo is a young palmer and is described as very mild mannered. He is extremely polite and cares very much about Isabella. He is very observant because he knows when she is about to walk into the room when she hasn’t yet. He is very infatuated with Isabella to a point where it is damaging to his health. He works very hard yet stays awake all night to hear her footsteps on the stairs when she first wakes up. He is also very timid and shy about his feelings. He is very afraid to tell her and he has a fear of rejection. Many times he decides to tell her yet loses the nerve because his passion makes him go silent. Lorenzo is very caring and ultimately a very gentle and nice person.
The knight and La Belle Dame had a very quick romance but it ultimately made the knight fall so in love that he is dying with out her. They were together for just a day and the knight could not focus on anything else all day long. They gave each other gifts.
“And sure in language strange she said -
‘I love thee true!’ “
The knight is hearing only what he chooses to. He did not understand her language so she may not have said that she loved him but he is believing what he wants. The knight is drawn to La Belle Dame’s beauty and mysterious nature. She is an enchantress so he may be under a spell.
Lorenzo and Isabella have a deep love for each other that they have concealed for a very long time. They are very familiar with the others movements and sounds. They can think only of the other and are so in love that they are slowly growing ill. Everyday their love grows but so does their sadness because they are unable to tell each other. They want to tell each other so badly but are afraid of rejection. They can not survive without the other. Lorenzo is drawn to Isabella’s innocence and sweet disposition. She is cultured and very beautiful.
In the beginning of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” the knight is very ill and full of sadness. This is all caused by his love for the enchantress. She is gone so he has let himself slowly die. He is just wasting away in this bleak surrounding. His love of the enchantress has caused him to become ill and he is slowly dying. This is also how the men in his dream died. He saw their ‘starv’d lips’ and he is slowly starving, as they did.
In “Isabella” they both ‘nightly weep’ because they cannot admit their feelings for each other. They are both sick with love. Towards the end of the poem, Isabella ‘fell sick within the rose’s just domain’ and Lorenzo’s forehead was ‘waxing very pale and dead’. They were both growing terribly sick because having to bear the pain of seeing the other without knowing of the other’s love. It is clear that Keats’ believes that love and illness are very closely related and that without love a person shall die.
Isabella and Lorenzo keep their love a secret from the other. They want to express their love but they are afraid. Lorenzo is afraid because he is lower in the social status than Isabella and he knows that their love may not be accepted. He also does not want to be rejected by Isabella. Isabella also thinks that she may be rejected and is afraid the love will not be accepted which is foreshadowing the murder of Lorenzo by Isabella’s brothers.
The knight and La Belle Dame express their feelings more through body language. They exchange gifts. He gives her a garland he made and she finds him fruit. She looks at him adoringly and sings to him. She ‘made sweet moan’ which expresses her contentment. He kisses her and she lulls him to sleep. He thinks that she says that she loves him but he cannot be certain because he does not understand her language.
In “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” the knight is telling his tale of the enchantress and how their day went. Since he is in love with her very much his rendition of the events may be biased. You see La Belle Dame as being very kind, sweet, and beautiful. Her actions may have been different to those described by the knight. Many women in modern day history act the way the enchantress has towards the knight. They meet men have a casual fling and leave the men broken hearted. Many may say that the enchantress has the mentality of a modern day woman stuck in this medieval setting. She may not be regarded as a seductress. She may be sweet and innocent and may not have enjoyed leaving the knight and it may not have been purposeful. She was possibly forced to or compelled to because she was an enchantress and they are from different worlds.
Keats’ has a very cynical and pessimistic view on love. He believes that love, death and a person’s health, mentally and physically, all are closely related. He feels that if a person does not have love then their health will slowly but surely begin to decline. He also feels that being in love and being loved can bring your health up. He emphasizes on the affect that love has on health in his poems and the stress that can hold for a relationship that is ultimate doomed.
Isabella and Lorenzo were very frustrated before they told each other how they felt. They would ‘nightly weep’ for each other and ‘It soothed each to be the other by;’. They loved each other more each day and night yet they also grew more love sick as each day passed. They could only think of each other all day long and through the night as well. In this dilemma they grew weaker by June. Lorenzo vowed to tell her many times yet the thought of it made him fall silent. Their distress grows until one day he confesses his love for her and they are filled with sudden contentment. They are absolutely full of bliss.
“Great bliss was with them, and great happiness
Grew , like a lusty flower in June’s caress.”
Lorenzo was going to tell Isabella how he felt on many occasion but he could not do it because he got too nervous. He thought she was going to reject him and after she began to get ill he thought that he may make her condition worse by telling her. When he finally did tell her he thought she may have the same feelings yet he was unsure. Not telling her began to take its toll because he was getting very ill, as she was.
In the knight’s dream in “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” he saw men that had been victims of La Belle Dame. They were starved and pale.
“I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - ‘La Belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!’ “
The kings and princes are all plural. There has been more than one of each and no matter how powerful they are they have all been victim to this beautiful enchantress. ‘La Belle Dame sans merci’ translates to ‘The Beautiful Woman without pity’. since she is described as being without pity she seems more like a femme fatale and that she is doing this on purpose to all these men. They had ‘starv’d lips’ which is foreshadowing him starving to death. Keats’ uses very vivid and descriptive language to describe the knight’s dream. He used ‘death-pale’, ‘starv’d lips’ and ‘horrid warning’ to describe his dream which makes the reader believe more that this was the woman’s fault and that she has enjoyed doing this to all of these men. It also builds a pity for the knight who will unquestionably die in this same manner as these men.
Keats’ views love as something that can cause temporary happiness but is ultimately doomed and going to cause sadness and sickness in the future. The knight from “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is a man who falls in love with an enchantress. He is so in love with her that he is staying in this place until she returns. She has abandoned him and he wants to see her so badly he is waiting for and slowly dying. The enchantress gives the image of being very delicate, graceful and gentle. She speak a different language to the knight and he believes that she said she loves him but he can not be sure of it. She is a femme fatal and has made many men fall in love with her and then left them broken hearted.
In “Isabella”, Lorenzo is a very gentle man who has been in love with Isabella for a very long time. He does not think that she will accept him so he keeps his love a secret. He is a very caring person. Isabella is a young lady who is very sophisticated. She is very sweet natured and loves Lorenzo yet can not bear to tell him. She is considered a very attractive girl and her description is what a proper lady should be for that period of time.
In “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” Keats’ makes it clear that before you act on impulses you should try and realise what you are getting yourself into. You should be rational and think before you act. In the poem the knight acted on impulses and he intuitively knew that she was an enchantress yet he still spent the day with her and fell in love with her. He will now die just as all her other victims have because he wants to see her so badly that he is letting himself waste away in hopes that she will return. The knight has let himself get too infatuated with the enchantress and is very close to obsession.
In “Isabella” their health is restored only after they confess their love to each other. They had been growing ill from a love sickness for months. They yearn for each other and want to tell the other how they feel. Keats’ poems emphasis on the fact that if a person is in love and can not admit it , bearing this secret then will cause them to become ill and their health will suffer.
In Keats’ poems you learn that if you love somebody and are loved by them you are very healthy mentally and physically. You also learn that if you keep secrets about love or hold back you become ill. Your health will deteriorate if love is lost. Keats’ feels that with love your health is at peak condition but without love your health will quickly decline.
