Suddenly the curse takes hold of her, ‘Out flew the web and floated wide; the mirror cracked from side to side’. At this part of the poem the pace quickens, at this point she know she is doomed, it brings a foreboding of disaster and doom. A bad omen is what bad fate is to happen to her.
The pleasant setting at the start of the poem suddenly changes the weather changes ‘all the blue unclouded weather’ beautiful clear blue sky, turns into ‘in the stormy east winds straining,’ ‘Heavily the low sky raining’. Something dreadful was going to happen to her.
She leaves the tower and she finds a boat, she wrote on the boat ‘The Lady of Shalott’ When she is in the boat she slowly starts to die ‘Lying robed in snowy white’. As she floats down the river she dies peacefully. She sings her last song. It was a sad hymn that she sang, ‘Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, till her blood was frozen slowly.’ Her blood didn’t freeze but it stopped circulating around her body. ‘And her eyes were darkened wholly’. Her eyes darkened as she was dying. ‘The Lady of Shallot’ knew that she was going to die but she wanted to love someone even if this meant that she would die.
The townsfolk stop what they are doing and gaze at her, all the ‘sound of the royal cheer’ die ‘and they crossed themselves for fear,’ so they made the sign of the cross. Ironically Sir Lancelot words ended the poem but he does not realise she chose to die for the love of him, all he could say was “She has a lovely face: God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott”. Like John Clare’s poem this too is a poem about love at first sight, but unlike Keats’ poem the Lady of Shalott is innocent and pure.
The poem ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ by John Keats gives a very different interpretation of love; this interpretation is a very negative view of love. ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ doesn’t love the man, she wants to ruin him and destroy him. Her love has trapped him. ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is evil. She is not innocent and pure like ‘The Lady of Shallot’.
Like the ‘Lady of Shallot’ this poem is also set in medieval England. We can tell this because in the poem it says ‘O, what can all thee, Knight-at-arms’ and the knights-at-arms were back in the medieval times, and rescued ladies in distress. The setting is ‘other-worldly’ and strange, where the knights roams ‘palely loitering’ the lady is seen ‘in the meads’ and she takes him to her ‘elfin grot’ and then vanishes leaving him ‘on the cold hills side’. Also all the colours in the poem seem to have drained away, this gives the poem an eerie feeling.
The time of year is harvest a time of celebration. However the knight is extremely unhappy. ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ had seduced him then left him.
When the knight-at-arms meets the stranger he recounts his experience. The stranger sees the knights-at-arms looking ill and he wants the knight-at-arms to explain what happened.
John Keats describes her beauty as ‘full, beautiful’ but within ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ there is an indication of evil threat ‘her eyes are wild’ and ‘her hair was long’ this indicates it was loose, flowing ad uncontrolled. This ‘A faery’s child,’ is full of wickedness, a temptress, and she lures the men and then destroys them, she sings ‘A faery’s song’ this is like a siren a beautiful lady who lures men to their doom by singing. She took me to her elfin grot,’ this is her faery cave, and the she turn on her feminine charm ‘she wept and sigh’d full sore’
Like the lady in Tennyson’s poem the knight falls instantly in love. She is different and enchanting; his love is so strong and passionate. Many poets have written about this powerful emotion, and strongly suggest that there is such a thing as falling in love when you see someone of the first time, an example of this would be ‘The Lady of Shallot’ she fell in love with ‘Sir Lancelot’. Clearly ‘Le Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is not innocent and is used to tempting men to their destruction, she convinced the men that she loved them, then tricked him to make him think that she loved him but she does not. ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ has an evil heart. ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is from another world because she feed him ‘roots and relish sweet, and honey wild and manna dew.’ These are enchanted sweets; the food makes him fall in love with her.
As ‘she lulled me asleep’ he dreams, he saw a warning ‘Ah! Woe betide’ there ‘I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors’ all of theses men where important people, they have vital roles. They all cried “La Belle Dame Sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!” which means the beautiful lady without mercy has you in her power. ‘I saw their starved lips in the gloam with horrid warning gasped wide,’ they all were suffering from the affects of her love, he is now trapped. When ‘I awoke and found me here, on the cold hills side’ she had vanished, her ‘elfin grot’ had gone he was trapped. ‘This is why I sojourn here alone and palely loitering’ this is why he is there she enchanted him now he is in limbo waiting for her to return. Clearly the Knight is now a broken man.
Like Tennyson’s poem love leads to destruction because the ‘The Lady of Shallot’ died for the love of ‘Sir Lancelot’ and in this poem the knight is left spellbound in limbo.
Unlike the poem ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’, John Clare’s poem ‘First Love’ depicts love as a pure and innocent emotion. John Clare was born in Helpston, Northamptonshire, England. On the 13th of July 1973.
This poem unlike the other two poems, is not set in a time long since the past, although there is little suggestion of a place when this meeting occurs so intense is the moment of falling in love that his surroundings become unimportant, his eyes only see her and this is all overwhelming for him.
‘First Love’ tells about the moment the poet fell in love for the first time, he was a young and innocent who sees her from a distance. He does not talk to her but he is captured by her beauty and compassion, this is like ‘The Lady of Shallot,’ she sees Sir Lancelot from a distance and doesn’t speak but she still falls in love with him.
John Clare’s describes the physical reactions of falling in love. The second stanza then describes the physical effects of love’s. ‘My legs refused to walk away,’ he was so love stuck that he was frozen to the spot and he couldn’t move his legs. ‘And then my blood rushed to my face,’ This could mean that the sight of the girl’s face is like looking at the sun or a bright light, was everything goes black, you feel your blood rushing to the face, you feel faint. ‘And took my eyesight quite away.’ This could mean that first love is a blinding force. One look at her face and he is fully “hers,” wiped out by her brilliant light and beauty. However, the mention of ‘the trees and bushes round the place’ so they are in the open but this turns to ‘midnight’ despite it being ‘noon day’ because he is so focused on her striking appearance so all else becoming dimmed.
All three of the poems suggest about falling in love at first sight, the knight in ‘Le Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is a fictional character whereas John Clare’s girl is real this was his true first love, Mary Joyce. The young girl is described as pure and innocent. ‘Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower’ the image of a flower is normal linked with simplicity, purity and perfection. She is very different to ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ because she used her feminine charms to get what she wanted, and enchanted the men then destroyed them, but the girl in ‘First Love’ is innocent, she was a country lass. The final stanza introduces a puzzling element into the poet’s view of love. There are lots of questions in this stanza, ‘is love’s bed always snow?’ this could mean that love can be cold, this could also mean that snow is white which is a pure colour. It seems that John Clare’s depiction of love is not straightforward, although you can fall in love at first sight, this can lead to a tragic ending, like ‘The Lady of Shallot’ or ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ which gives a negative view on love.
Lord Byron was born in England on the 22nd January 1788. His poem ‘When We Two Parted’ is different from ‘The Lady of Shallot’ because her love was very innocent and pure but in ‘When We Two Parted’ their love was a secret liaison. It is believed that this poem is about a real person. Lord Byron went on to Dulwich, Harrow, and Cambridge, where he piled up debts and aroused alarm with bisexual love affairs. Staying at Newstead in 1802, he probably first met his half-sister, Augusta Leigh with whom he was later suspected of having an incestuous relationship.
The poem is about the ending of a relationship. Lord Byron does not use complicated phrases or imagery seems to reach out to the reader making it more moving. This poem truly moved me because it seemed to sum up my first love who I had a secret relationship and despite my feelings never love. The structure of the poem is 4 stanzas each stanza has 8 lines, this is the same as ‘The Lady of Shallot’
The poem is in the form of an address, like he is speaking to the lady, personally telling her about how he feels about her. Lord Byron has chosen to use words like ‘thee’, ‘thou’, and ‘thy’ in his poem. This show he is trying to use old fashioned terminology with is used in prayers and hymns. Clearly the poet shows his distress at the ending of their affair, this is made out to be very sad ‘in silence I grieve’ he is sad about the whole ordeal, but he can’t tell anyone about it, so he has to mourn in silence.
The imagery in this poem that is used to describe his feelings are similar to the all the other poems, where they all mention about the paleness of the skin, the coldness they all feel, and lack of feeling that everyone had.
The lady in the poem is very different from the girl in ‘First Love’ because there were no secret between anyone, she was a normal sweet, country girl, but in this poem the lady is fairly similar to ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ she seems to be a cruel and heartless women, ‘Thy spirit deceive’ this is saying that the lady tricked him, just like ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ when she enchanted the men.
The repetition of ‘In silence and tears’ in the first and last stanzas
indicates that he wanted to emphasize the difference between two verses.
Love is a powerful emotion which can change and alter because many people see love in different ways, this is just four views on love; all of these poems give us a negative view on love. All of the poems lead to a tragic ending either leading to death, or feeling very distressed or heartbroken.
The poem I liked the most enjoyed was ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ because it was a fictional poem, distressing a knight-at-arms who has been seduced and abandoned by a capricious fairy. This tells about the ‘faery child’ enchanting the knight and then vanishing leaving him to find her again. This is a great poem showing the tragedy of love.
