The atmosphere in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ changes throughout the poem. At the beginning it seems very slow and depressing because of the way Keats describes the way the knight is feeling and how he looks, ‘haggard and woebegone.’ But as the poem continues, and as he meets the lady he falls in love with, the atmosphere becomes happier and upbeat as that is how the knight is meant to be feeling, ‘I met a lady in the meads, full beautiful – a faery’s child.’ In comparison to that
‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ has twelve verses and they all consist of four lines. Each line has eight syllables except the last lines which are with four or five. This poem is a ballad which usually tells a story. That is exactly what this poem does. Keats uses good literary devices in this poem to help the reader imagine the story. He uses metaphors, ‘I see a lily on thy brow,’ and alliteration, ‘strange she said. Also used in this poem is repetition to make the reader remember a vital point within the poem and stress an important part, caesuras to break up some of the sentences, rhyme and enjambment to keep the poem flowing and old language to help state the time the poem was written in.
The poem ends repeating the way it begins. This represents life as a circle you end similar to how you are born, helpless like the knight.
The style of this poem is romantic and it contains classic elements such as medieval subject matter, ‘knight-at-arms,’ beauty, emotion, sensuality, ‘I love thee true!’ and archaic, simple language, ‘sojourn.’ This is opposite style to ‘To Autumn’ because it tells more of a story and the language is simpler than in the other poem, it also does not have a romantic style. Although, like ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci,’ it does contain beauty, emotion and sensuality, ‘And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue.’ This poem also contains references to all five senses.
‘To Autumn’ is about how everything changes in autumn. The sights, ‘who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?’ the sounds, ‘full grown lambs loud bleat,’ and the poet’s opinion of it all. This poem is based on the feel of autumn and all the changes it brings. It has a deep description of nature. It has a very old style of wording. Phrases like, ‘thou hast thy music too’ are used in this poem and make it sound more real even though it is not easy to understand straight away. I think he used this language to add to that atmosphere of an English summer.
In ‘To Autumn’ many literary devices are used to help create a picture in the readers head. Such as, alliteration, ‘mists and mellow,’ onomatopoeia, ‘oozing hours by hours,’ personification, ‘Thy hair soft-lifted,’ and rhetorical questions, ‘Where are the Songs of Spring?’ All these devices in the poem help the reader understand and see what Keats was thinking when he was writing this poem. Enjambment is used to help the sentences flow. There is a regular rhyme scheme and most of the lines are made up of ten syllables. There are also eleven lines in each of the three verses. The structure is simple and makes the poem is easy to read, I think Keats did this so it didn’t detract from the beauty of the description autumn.
Autumn can be seen as a metaphor for middle age. Because Keats had a fatal illness he had to go through his stages of life more quickly than most. At 24 he was middle aged. At the end of the poem Keats talks about, ‘ gathering swallows’ swallows come back every summer after migrating so this may illustrate Keats opinion of life. Maybe he is saying people and reincarnated.
It was the last poem he wrote which tells us he ended on a happy note and had come to terms with his illness and death.
‘to Autumn,’ is set in late September/ early October and is a reflection of the season’s beauty and nature is at its peak, warm and rich with a sense of achievement, whereas ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ is set in the late autumn/early winter where the air is full of decay and negativity and nature seems cold and unwelcoming. ‘To Autumn’ has a happy yet reminiscing atmosphere, as it is what Keats thinks and misses about autumn. The poem also comes across as a tranquil atmosphere which is opposite to ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci.’
I think these two poems have many similarities, but also many differences. They both contain similar uses of literary devices and both contain references to Keats love for nature. ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci,’ has autobiographical elements, such as the knight’s symptoms which relate to his own symptoms of tuberculosis and how he sees his own fate, which ‘To Autumn’ does not have. ‘To Autumn’ contains more of Keats love for nature and how he feels about it which ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci,’ does not fully contain. Whereas everything in ‘To Autumn’ is different. The rhythm in ‘To Autumn’ is slow and steady which may suggest nature stays at her own pace and does not rush, but the rhythm in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ is slow and heavy and perhaps suggests the weakness of the knight as if he had been robbed of all his strength.
The rhyme of ‘To Autumn’ is regular and may reflect the regularity of seasons throughout the year. Whereas, as the rhyme of ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ is regular yet predictable. The repetition in the last line of certain stanzas gives the poem a melancholic tone, ‘on a cold hill’s side.’ Finally, in ‘To Autumn’ there is a positive attitude towards death, as if it is known and acceptable to be a part of life and as a part of life’s cycle. But in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ Keats attitude to death is bitterer and not as acceptable. It is possible that the lady in the poem is a metaphor for his illness which is something which he came across and has stolen the rest of his life from him.
