Rhythm and Meter in La Belle Dame Sans Merci

In "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", John Keats subverts the traditional ballad form. Since traditional ballads are composed of four or six lines, and use one of two basic meters: 4-3-4-3 or 4-4-4-4. Insted John keats doesn't follow this since each lines finished before than expected. This makes the poem have a slower pace and this emphasizes the ending of the knight, alone and maybe dead. These are the variations in the rythm.
"La belle Dame sans merci" follows an iambic tetrameter. For example:
I made a garland for her head
And bracelets too, fragrant zone

Ideas on Ode to Autumn

• Excess of vitality and growth
• Personification of Autumn: as if it were a woman
• Cycle of life in one day
• Ambivalence in the tone: Duality towards Autumn, happiness and sadness
• Reminder of Death but rejoicing of nature
• Description of nature

THE END

Task two

1) How does To Autumn differ from the other poems you have studied?

To autumn differs from other poems since it describes autumn with a lot of colours, excess vitality and growth ("To bend with apples"). Nature is depicted in a joyful way. The structure is the progression of one day, the first stanza for the morning, the second stanza for the afternoon and the third stanza for the night. There is an ambivalence in the tone, a duality towards autumn; happiness and sadness throughout the poem. In the last stanza which is in the overall more melancholic it still uses certain words as a reminder that it is not all sad ("soft-dying day"). The big difference is that the speaker is reminded of death but rejoices nature. Much more positive than other poems, he is more accepting of the inevitable end not like Ode on Melancholy where death is rejected. In Ode on a Grecian Urn the speaker doesn´t accept death, in fact it resents the urn since it will prevail throughout time and he is going to die and be forgotten. Also he is admiring nature in the urn and imagines what it would look like while in Ode to Autumn he is actually admiring nature. 

2) I mentioned in a letter to my old pal Reynolds that the stubble fields in Autumn looked "warm" to me. How do I communicate a sense of warmth in my poem?

It communicates the warmth through the language and the synaestethic images. "Warm days will never cease", which means that the warmth will prevail.

3) How do I use language to reflect the passage of time and a sense of an ever-changing world in this poem?

The poem reflects the cycle of life, it not only refers to the progression of the seasons but to the passing of one day. 

In the first stanza there is an excess of vitality and growth, just like in the beginning of life; "maturing sun". It personifies the sun to show how the day is starting and the sun is coming up. 

The second stanza relates to middle of life, the day is already coming to an end; the afternoon. There is a hint of a lazy, mellow and apathetic mood; "Drows´d with the fume of poppies". It is a syneathetic image which combines vision, sound and smell. It doesn´t have the same vividity as the first stanza. 

The last stanza refers to life coming to an end; "rosy hue". The author embraces and accept this ending, "hedge-crickets sing", nature prevails and vitality is still there even though it is the very ending. 

To conclude, the poem is about life and death, form the very beginning of life until the very end. It shows the progression of how time goes by thorough the language used. 

Comparing Our & His Poetry

The similarities we found with Keats' "To Autumn" are:

- The description and aprecciation of nature, and the sense of admiration towards it.
- The personification of nature, in our case in "sorrowed brow" compared to how Keats' compares Autumn to a woman.
- The themes of life and death and the cycles in life. Keats' describes natures cycles (Summer, Autumn, etc), as we portrayed on our first picture, and as we expressed on our lines on it. We wrote about how life and death meet and how we are bound to it, as Keats' does in his poem; "Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies".

Ode to Autumn

Rebirth and birth

And it goes round and round

From Zeus' hands to the arms on Thanatos

To the cycle you are bound

The colours expand across the grey sky

Alas, the arc upon your sorrowed brow

Is as pulchritudinous

As the glistening, transluccent bow

Shadows reach for me

I walk alone

But the shadows reach up

As so I go on

Ode on Melancholy ---> Discovering its Imagery

"Wolfs-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;"

The image portrays the physical appearance and the poisonous aspect that is presented in the poem about the wolfs bane, which is a beautiful flower but in this case it is shown to be deadly. The image highlights the shadows and lights, especially the darkness, evil death brought about by the flower.

 

" Make not your rosary of yew-berries;"

      The image on the right presents a rosary that is red just like the yew-berries. The shape of the balls in the rosary have the same shape as the ones of the berry. Also the fact that it talks about a rosary relates to religion and god.  This is one more allusion to nature that is present in the first stanza. It portrays the idea that everything is connected. 

"Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud"

The image on the right shows a landsacape in which there is a storm and it is raining. This highlights the metaphor in the poem about the rain and sky. Melancholy is unexpected, just like rain and is presente through nature.  

 "And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes"

This image is a direct portrayal of the "peerless eyes". Keats' makes use of repetition of the word 'deep' to highligh this idea, and the eyes on the picture give an impression of deepness.

"Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,"

This picture represents the "aching pleasure", as the woman is 'throwing up' love. It is a portrayal of the oxymoron as two opposite terms are joined. In this case, the oxymoron expresses that even though you are happy, you will eventually be sad as melancholy makes it's way to us, and joy is only temporary.

"Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:"

The image above shows a bee sipping the pollem of a flower. The bees make honey which is really sweet but they can also sting which can ache. In some way this can show how the speaker enjoys melancholy. 

Ode on Melancholy

 Lyric Poem:"A short poem with one speaker (not necessarily the poet) who expresses thought and feeling. Though it is sometimes used only for a brief poem about feeling (like the sonnet).it is more often applied to a poem expressing the complex evolution of thoughts and feeling, such as the elegy, the dramatic monologue, and the ode. The emotion is or seems personal In classical Greece, the lyric was a poem written to be sung, accompanied by a lyre."

Melancholy: "is beyond sad, it's a word for the gloomiest of spirits.Being melancholy means that you're overcome in sorrow, wrapped up in sorrowful thoughts. The word started off as a noun for deep sadness, from a rather disgusting source."

Reflection with my Critical Friend on "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

PART ONE

Task 1 (Critical Friend: Jaz Larreta)

A) The making of the urns helped on the understanding of the poem. In the first place, it directly expressed through drawings the images Keats' included in each stanza (Including his own synaesthetic images), bringing to reality the images we had build with our own imagination. Secondly, through these drawings, language was also explored and analyzed in a deeper way, depicting every aspect of the ode. In the third place, metaphors were portrayed with the help of these representation of the images, helping on the understanding of them in a more dynamic way. For example: "What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?", this quote was illustrated as woman running (Escaping), and in this way the metaphor was explored and worked for it to be understood better.

B) Is Keats' reflecting on his own coming of death? (He was already infected with Tuberculosis)

    Is he allucinating? What is real and what is not?

C) - Group Work

     - Patience

     - Efficent Communication (Listening to others)

     - Creativity

     - Division of tasks

     - Correct use of time

Understanding Ode on A Grecian Urn

STANZA TWO 

In lines 1-4 I contrast the ideal (in art, love, and nature) and the real - the "heard melodies"; which does my speaker seem to prefer at this point? How can you tell?

The speaker prefers the unheard melodies, the musicality that the urn conveys that can´t be heard but is imagined by him. He seems to prefer what he fantasizes about the urn than what is really there. The speaker uses his imagination to reflect upon the urn and give a more deep and descriptive idea of it instead of sinply staying with the description of the simple urn. The urn is static but what he creates in his mind is dynamic. He gives vividity to the simple urn. I can tell becuase it says "those unheard  Are sweeter", he believes that what you imagine is better thet what you can hear.  At this point the speaker is reflecting upon reality and imagination, he seems also to idolize the urn in some way. 

Is the idea of unheard pipes an oxymoron?

Yes, because the pipes make sound and "unheard" implies silence.This two contradicxtory ideas are contrasted to reinforce the idea of the melodies. There is ambivalnce in this case, between what the speaker can really see and what is in his head. 

In lines 5-10 we begin to sense a negative undercurrent to the ideal, to frozen time. How do I use language to help convey this negativity?

John keats uses the language to convey it negativity. For example, when it says "trees be bare" it is reffering to a tree with no leaves, and the lack of life. This can be a reflection of the speaker upon his own life and how it is empty, his own frustrated life. The repetition of the word never reinforces the negativity and frustration of his love life. Also there is repetition of the word "not". In this part of the poem time is frozen,the speaker doesn´t convey the same idea than in the first lines where there is vividty and a great use of his imagination instead there is stillnessandstatic images. In this part there is a pessimistic point of view of view of life.  

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Making of a Creative Urn 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (or the Beautiful Lady without Mercy)

The place mat:

The painting:John William Waterhouse: 1849 to 1917, he was born in Rome and his father was a painter. In the beggining he inspired his paintingd on Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Frederic Leighton. In the last years of his life he suffered from cancer until he died, but he contiued painting. 
The painting reflects different aspects of the poem. It portrays the tragic love story, in which the lady is usinge her hair to bring him close to her. In her hand it can be seen that she is pushing him close to her as if she was trapping him. She is really pale and it looks as if she isn´t even real, while he is really tan like any human. It seems as if she was lifeless, in her face the feeling of sadness can be portrayed and enchanting in the same way. In the backround the nature that is present in the poem can be seen; "and the harvest´s done". The lady and the knight seem to be united to the nature, since her hair seems to blend in with the backround and his hand is grabbing a branch of a plant which unites him to the landscape. It suggests how in our lives humans are connected to nature. One of the main themes of romantic literature is nature.

 John William Waterhouse, made in 1893   Henry Meynell Rheam, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" 1901
 The second painting reflects the ending of the poem, how she leaves him in despair laying on the floor. The two paintings seem like a sequence, since the painting by waterhouse portrays the way in which she enchants him. In both there is a strong presence of nature. There is more light in the second painting and this can highlight the clarity there is in the end that she is leaving him alone. While in in the first one there are more shadows which can show that the knight still doesn´t know that she will leave him. In the first painting the nature is vivid,alive and powerful while in the other the nature is dead,it seems to be the winter and that it forshadows death, the death of the knight.  I believe the two paintings together give me a better understanding of the poem. 

SOURCES

http://www.np.ac.rs/yu/preuzimanjasve/nastavni-materijal/filoloske-nauke/engleska-knjizevnost-4/753-introduction-to-romanticism/download

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/books/08book.html?scp=1&sq=stanley%20plumly&st=cse

http://www.poemhunter.com/john-keats/biography/ 

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5784

POETIC BALLAD

A poetic ballad is a poem that has a song-like style, they could be related to children since poems for them are written in that style. Also it has some characteristics that define them; like simple language so that it can be understood by anybody. Also they have repetition, usually they have refrain that is repeated along the poem, and it is story-like since it tells a story and it is narrative, it includes multiple characters. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdfiCPx7sewc

His Imagery

Synaesthetic Images

 The synaesthetic images are when the different senses are combined. It is when the visual, tactile, auditory, etc. senses are merged to form one image.  It was repeatedly used by John Keats to portray the unity of the world, to show that everything is linked together in some way and to create a sensual effect."Isabella; or, The Pot of Gold" And TASTE the MUSIC of that VISION pale. (stanza XLIX)In this line, the three sensory images that are combined are sight, (vision pale), sound (music) and taste (taste). Therefore the synaesthtic image created is composed of a visual image, a sound image and a taste image.  

THEMES

    Keats’ Themes- Death: “When I have fears that I may cease to be.” (1818) – Ode to a Nightingale “When youtb grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies” (1819) - The Contemplation of Beauty: “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art” (1819) – Ode on a Grecian Urn “Beauty is truth, true beauty” (1819).- Separation Vs. Connection: Ode on a Grecian Urn “Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave” (1819)-Dreams or visions (Imagination): Ode on a Grecian Urn “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard” (1819)

ODE

  An ode is a lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion.  Ode comes from the Greek work “aeidein” which means to sing or chant, although this did not occur in the Romanticism. Keats Odes:- Ode on Indolence (1819): “One morn before me were three figures seen,”- Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819): “Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,”- Ode on Melancholy (1819): “No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist”- Ode to a Nightingale (1819): “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains”- Ode to Psyche (1819): “O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung”- Ode to Apollo (1815): “In thy western halls of gold”- Robin Hood – To a Friend (1818): “No! Those days are gone away,”- Lines on the Mermaid Tavern (1818): “Souls of Poets dead and gone,”-To Autumn (1819): “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,”- Ode to Fancy (1820): “Ever let the Fancy roam,”

John Keats vs Lord Byron

    Lord Byron, British poet born in 1788.

The rivalry between Byron and Keats was mainly because of jealousy. Byron belonged to an upper class aristocratic family, therefore was accepted in society and had great success. On the other hand, Keats struggled as a middle class poet, being critized for his work as soon as published. Byron stated that he disliked Keats’ work on an aesthetic level while Keats described Byron’s work as overrated and unoriginal.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Women of Algiers in their Apartment. Delacroix. 1834

Characteristics

Characteristics of the Romanticism:- Imagination and emotion are more important than reason and formal rules- Interest in nature and rural life, nature = divine revelation- Interest in medieval past, the supernatural, the exotic and mystical- Individualism: Elevation of the achievements of the misunderstood- Subjective poetry- Allure of rebellion and revolution

Oh lala! C'est la Revolution!

The historical event that had a major impact in the romantic era was the French revolutionIn England initial support for the Revolution was primarily utopian and idealist, and when the French failed to live up to expectations, most English intellectuals renounced the RevolutionLiberty leading the people – Eugene Delacroix (1830)

The Romatic Period

The Romatic Period in literature lasted from 1796 to 1832This picture is of the typical countryside in England, one of the places where the Romantic period was the most powerful. One of the aspects the romantics highlighted was the common aspect of the rural world. It shows the nature in the landscape, with the fog in the back which portrays the exotic and marvellous. These are characteristics of this period. 

Charles Brown, John Keat's BFF

Charles Brown was Keats’ closest friend. He was the neighbour to Fanny Brawne. “Write to George as soon as you receive this, and tell him how I am, as far as you can guess; and also a note to my sister—who walks about my imagination like a ghost—she is so like Tom. I can scarcely bid you goodbye, even in a letter. I always make an awkward bow.”

Oh F.B, J.K Loves You so Much

His ONE True Love

Frances (Fanny) Brawne was a really important person in John Keats, it could be said that she was the love of his life and he would have done anything for her. He thought he couldn’t live without her, he believed he was selfish by saying this.  Every aspect of his life was concentrated on her as he loved her so much, and he was inspired by her.

John Keat's Short but Wonderful LIFE

• Born in London, England, on October 31, 1795

• 1803: His dad died (Had a profound effect on his life)

• 1810: After her mother left him in the care of her mother because of her second marriage failure, she got sick with turberculosis and died.  Keats left the school for studies to become a surgeon. He studied medicine at a London hospital.

• 1813:  Hunt's radicalism and biting pen landed him in prison for libeling Prince Regent.

• 1816: He became a licensed apothecary, never ceasing his devotion for literature.

• 1817: Leveraged his new friendships to publish his first volume of poetry, Poems by John Keats. 

• 1818: He published his first Shakespearean sonnet “When I have fears that I may cease to be”. He fell in love with Fanny Brawne. 

• 1819: He contracted turberculosis, and his health started to deteriorate quickly.

• 1820: Publishes his last final volume of poetry Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems. He left a letter to Fanny saying “If I had had time, I would have made myself remember’d”. 

• 1821: Died on the 23 of February, clutching the hand of his friend Joseph Severn.