What similarities and difference have you noticed in 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by Keats and 'Mariana'

What similarities and difference have you noticed in ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ by Keats and ‘Mariana’

The two poems ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ and ‘Mariana’ have very similar genres. They are both based on a Romantic theme. They are both about unrequited love. In ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ it is about a knight who falls in love with a woman and he thinks she loves him as well until she puts a spell on him and he realises it is all a trick and she doesn’t care for him at all. It was written in 1819. In ‘Mariana’ it’s about a woman (Mariana) and how she was engaged to Angelo who jilted her when the ship carrying her dowry was lost at sea. Now, still pining for Angelo, she lives in lonely seclusion in a country house, the poem talks about her miserable life without her lover.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a ballad which means the language is simple, bare and direct. The poem starts off with a kind of ‘narrator’ for the first few paragraphs. He basically sets the scene. The narrator describes the atmosphere as eerie, desolate and bleak. There was no noise at all, it was very quiet-“and no birds sing.” The second paragraph is when the narrator first speaks to the knight. The season is supposedly autumn/winter time. He asks the knight what’s wrong with him. The knight is describes to be “haggard” and look like he’s been ‘dragged through a ...

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La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a ballad which means the language is simple, bare and direct. The poem starts off with a kind of ‘narrator’ for the first few paragraphs. He basically sets the scene. The narrator describes the atmosphere as eerie, desolate and bleak. There was no noise at all, it was very quiet-“and no birds sing.” The second paragraph is when the narrator first speaks to the knight. The season is supposedly autumn/winter time. He asks the knight what’s wrong with him. The knight is describes to be “haggard” and look like he’s been ‘dragged through a hedge backwards.’ His face is pale and he seems to be sweating. The knight then starts to tell his tale.

The knight uses simple language and explains that he meet a beautiful girl dancing gracefully. Although he mentions that her eyes were “wild” which implies she is slightly mad and uncontrollable. The knight’s tale seems to start off as a fantasy, as it is idyllic and dream like. He says he made flower garlands for her hair, wrists and waist. The knight feels that she loved him as much as he loved her. The poem says “I set her on my pacing steed,” which makes him seem powerful and in charge. Another thing the knight ‘remembers’ from his day with the young lady is that she went to find beautiful plants for him to eat while swaying and singing, which is very romantic. The plants she found to feed him were sweet with an exotic taste. She also found “honey wild and manna dew” for him to drink, which is a ‘heavenly’ drink from the bible. The girl speaks a strange language the knight could not understand, however he thinks she told him in her own language she loves him.

The moods know starts to change as she takes him to her cave. The minute they arrive at the cage the girl starts to cry as if she’s in a lot of pain. We know this as Keats reefers back to her eyes but now says they are “wild wild eyes.” The knight focusing on her eyes try’s to calm her down by kissing her eyelids. After she has finished crying the lady starts to sing the knight to sleep, “lulled me asleep.” The girl also says “Ah! Woe betide!” which sounds like she is placing a spell or trance on him. The knight’s story then ends abruptly- short and sharp. His dreams ends with the mood sour as he finds himself on a “cold hill’s side.” This in effect could be the knight returning to reality. The knight then describes his strange dream that he had after the lady put him under a ‘spell.’ The knight describes the people in his dream to be ghostly figures, with starving lips and gloomy light. We then think that the girl has sent him a warning and has now trapped him and got him as her slave. When the knight describes his dream he uses the word ‘pale’ three times, which is repetition and paleness is related to the dead.

The last paragraph is a near enough repeat of the first, with the knight describing him on the hill by the lake, as this is where he woke up after his dream. This means the poem has completed a full circle, as has the knight. Everything links back to the beginning of the poem, causing us to think has time stood still like us the knight is unsure. Throughout the poem ‘Keats’ appeals to our senses. Keats also uses repeated ‘O’ sounds in the poem like ‘alone’, ‘long’, ‘moan’, ‘done’ etc. Along with the ‘O’ sounds there is a lot of alliteration such as ‘hair was long, her foot was light.

The poem Marinia