La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad by John Keats | Poetry Foundation La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad by John Keats Writing Ideas 1. “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is a ballad —one of the oldest poetic forms in English. Ballads generally use a bouncy rhythm and rhyme scheme to tell a story. Think about an event that has happened to you recently and try to tell it in ballad form. 2. The poem is a narrative of an encounter that entails both pleasure and pain. Think of a person you have met in your life who has brought you both joy and unhappiness. Write a poem that describes your first encounter and, like Keats, the moment you realized they had you “in thrall.” 3. Take the final word from each line of Keats’s poem (arms, loitering, lake sing). Use them as the first words of lines to your own poem, which either recreates the mood of Keats’s poem, or creates a totally opposite mood. 4. Make an erasure of Keats’s poem. Cross out words or entire phrases to make a new poem “within” or “underneath” the real one. Discussion Questions 1.

Keats wrote in a letter to his friend Richard Woodhouse, “A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence, because he has no Identity.” Keats thought poets should remove their egos from their poetry, to better allow for poetry to happen unfiltered by personality. What similarities do you detect between the Knight in “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” and Keats’s idea of a poet? 2. Go through and circle all of the poem’s adjectives. What do you notice about them? Why does Keats use so many? What effects do they create? What happens when you read the poem without them? 3. There are a few voices talking in this poem. Go through the poem and figure out who is speaking, and when: what does each voice say, and not say? What is the effect of having multiple voices frame the poem? Who speaks and who doesn’t? 4. “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is a kind of fairy-tale gone awry. What are the “fairy-tale” elements in the poem (words, themes, emotions) and how do they relate to other poems you have read?

You might compare this poem’s content to “ Annabel Lee ” by Edgar Allan Poe, or its structure to “ Ozymandias ” by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Teaching Tips 1. Use “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” to do a brief introduction to meter and prosody. Ask your students to recite the refrain of a popular song, or one that gets stuck in their heads easily. Pull different kinds of metrical feet—anapest, dactyl, iamb, trochee, spondee—from the lyrics they give you (having a few songs in mind yourself may be helpful). Emphasize that these names just describe the system of stressed syllables already inherent in English. Go through the different kinds of metrical feet with your students. Tell them they are going to play “Meter Madlibs,” and then hand out a few stanzas of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” with some of the words removed. On the board, write down the kind of foot that belongs in each blank space. “O what can ail thee ______________”[dactyl], for example. Have students work in groups to fill in the blank with their own words. 2.

Have students try to map the events of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” on two timelines—one that shows the events as they happen in “real” time, and the other as Keats relays them in “poem” time. Talk about how narrative works in poetry and fiction. Why do poets and authors play with sequence and chronology in their work? What might it tell us about how we experience time ourselves? 3. The rhyme scheme in “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is consistent, but not exact. In groups have students go through and circle all the exact rhymes, put a square around all the slant rhymes, and underline the words that don’t seem to rhyme at all. Review the different kinds of rhymes as a class. Then form a rhyme circle. Make whatever stipulations you want (no exact rhymes; only slant), say a word, and go around the circle using different kinds of rhyme on that word. La Belle Dame Sans Merci - John Keats Poetry - Keats' Kingdom La Belle Dame Sans Merci La Belle Dame Sans Merci Notes on La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats Narrative story in form of a ballad… Knight and Damsel in distress kind of idea.

Keats dug da French revolution– important to remember that. O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. Palely: Keats suffered from TB– ironic. Purity or just dull? Question asked, as though the reader is an observer of the situation The stanza is dark and eerie and powerful. Gives a feeling of unease– suggests foreboding and evil to come. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. Autumn, things die, slow, shut down I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful - a faery's child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. Idealistic Romantic description I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.

‘she looked at me as she did love’- she doesn’t say it– ambiguous– holding back, silent. The bracelets and garland are trusty stuff that he made. I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery's song. She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange she said - "I love thee true." The gifts she has for him are suspicious– sweet and sickly. Could be drugs (wild and dangerous)- echoes their relationship She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept, and sigh'd fill sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. When she cries, it could make us feel sorry for her because she’s guilty about what she’s doing OR (and more likely) it could be emotional blackmail. She’s got him right where she wants him And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dream'd - Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side.

Latest dream: been done before– could happen again The last line of each stanza is shorter– unexpected; don’t know what’s going to happen next. It also disrupts the rhythm with the short line– echoes a kind of sinister feeling. 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!" In this stanza, we learn there are other victims I saw their starved lips in the gloom, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill's side. And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. This last stanza is an echo of the first stanza and it answers the question asked at the start. Pale + death semantic field The title of the poem means ‘beautiful lady without merci’ -She represents women in general in Keats’ point of view. -Also represents what he finds illusive about love However, there are questions left unanswered in this poem– we don’t know what happens next– to him or her.

Also, is the knight in this poem dead or alive when he’s writing it? The knight is scared of rejection and false promises, and the woman is in control. La Belle Dame sans Merci - More Notes "La Belle Dame sans Merci" or "The Beautiful Lady without Pity" is the title of an early fifteenth-century French poem by Alain Chartier which belongs to the tradition of courtly love. Keats appropriates this phrase for a ballad which has been generally read as the story of a seductive and treacherous woman who tempts men away from the real world and then leaves them, their dreams unfulfilled and their lives blighted. For all the beguiling simplicity of the surfaces of this literary ballad, it is one of the most difficult of Keats's poems to explain, and open to many interpretations. It has been alternately suggested, for example, that it is about the wasting power of sexual love and / or the poet's infatuation with his muse. This particular analysis will examine the `La Belle Dame sans Merci' as a poem about a femme fatale and offer a feminist interpretation of the ballad.

A femme fatale or fatal woman conventionally tempts man with her beauty and ultimately causes his destruction. There are many such figures in traditional supernatural ballads concerned with a faery's seduction of a human; notable examples include Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer. That the knight-at-arms in this poem has been enchanted, enthralled, is immediately suggested by his wandering in a desolate wasteland where the plant life has withered and no birds sing. He himself is in a decline; he is pale and the rose in his cheeks, like the sedge, is withering. In trying to explain his state to his questioner, he makes us highly suspicious of the lady whom he encountered. What is there in his description that makes the lady sound dangerous? To start with, he identifies her as a supernatural being, a `faery's child' with `wild wild eyes' suggestive perhaps of madness. She speaks a strange language, and in her elfin grotto she lulls him to sleep. There may be a suggestion here that she is potentially treacherous since `lull' can denote an attempt to calm someone's fears or suspicions by deception.

The lady's responsibility for his condition seems to be confirmed in the dream he has of the death of pale kings, princes, and warriors who claim 'La Belle Dame sans Merci / Hath thee in thrall!' `And this is why I sojourn here' he tells his questioner, apparently referring back to this 'horrid warning' of the dream. He stays because he is in thrall to the beautiful lady without pity. A haunting ominous effect is created through Keats's use of the formal features of the traditional ballad. Frequent repetition is one such feature; in the original oral ballad form this would have been an aid to memory as well as emphasising particular points when the poem was recited. What is the effect of repetitions of words, phrases, and lines in Keats's literary ballad? Repetition is also found in the alliterative and assonantal effects of such lines as `Her hair was long, her foot was light', `made sweet moan', and `wild wild eyes'. Also following the ballad manner, the words are deployed tersely. Why might Keats choose such language in striking contrast to his more usual luxuriant mode?

Although he follows tradition in using a four-line stanza or quatrain rhyming abcb, he makes one notable adjustment. Normally a ballad line has about eight syllables with four stresses in the first and third lines and three in the second and fourth. Keats shortens the last line of each stanza: it has only two stresses and usually only four syllables. This creates the effect of the stanza being abruptly cut off, of something being absent or withheld. So exactly what is being withheld in this poem? We are, in fact, given very little information about anything. We know nothing about the speaker who interrogates and describes the knight. We know very little about the lady, only what the knight tells us; we are offered no interpretation of his experience; indeed, the knight's story opens up more questions than it answers. What is the significance of this lady and why should she want to enthral the knight? Let us turn back to the "belle dame" then, but, rather than focusing on what he tells us she does to him, let us consider what he says he does to her. The knight is hardly just a helpless victim.

He courts her, and creates garlands and bracelets and belts that can be seen not only to decorate but also to bind and enclose her. He claims possession of her: `I set her on my pacing steed'. As soon as they reach her `elfin grot', we are given the perplexing and unexplained suggestion that she herself is now unhappy. 'she wept, and sigh'd full sore'. The lady has been defined as a cruel enchantress, but does she actually do anything that can be said to be cruel or enthralling? Does she even seduce him? If she speaks in `language strange', how can he be sure she said "I love thee true". It would seem that he translates what she says into what he wants to hear. Once we question his translation of her words we are also forced back to question the lines 'She looked at me as she did love, / And made sweet moan'. How do we read the ambiguous syntax here: does he mean she looked at him while she loved him or she looked at him as though she did love him?

A feminist critic might point to the many ambiguities, contradictions and lacunae in the text to offer a counter-reading in which it is the lady who is, in a sense, the victim. Such a reading would focus less on her actual identity, which we can know little about anyway, and more on the patriarchal order which defines and interprets her identity. Are then any binary oppositions established in the poem which might fit with this set of oppositions? Who defines the lady as 'la belle dame 'sans merci', as the femme fatale in this ballad? Keats places the definers and interpreters firmly within the patriarchal world. It is the knight who tells the story, who describes the lady for us and his questioner. The knight and the kings, princes and warriors who appear in his dream, belong to the masculine world of strife and action, government and politics. All have been attracted to the feminine bower world of the lady and her "elfin grot"; they have luxuriated in the pleasures she has provided. They have succumbed not so much to the lady but to something within themselves which desires to withdraw from the masculine world of duties and responsibilities.

The lady provides the knight with sweet foods and lulls him to sleep. Now we are trying to see things from her perspective, we become more aware of the extremely ambiguous nature of that word 'lulled'. It can indeed mean to calm someone's fears or suspicions by deception. It can also, however, more innocently mean to soothe with soft sounds and motions, as a mother might soothe a child to sleep. We can assume that the pale kings and warriors with `starved lips' have had a similar experiences to the knight. In the lady's world they regress in an almost infantile manner. Then, recognising that the power and stability of the patriarchal world depends on the rejection of this, urge to withdraw, the kings, warriors, and princes have placed the blame squarely upon the woman, defined her as the temptress who has the knight in thrall. And the knight seems to authorise this definition: `And this is why I sojourn here', he tells his questioner. Wandering in this barren landscape, he is neither in the masculine world of strife and action nor the feminine world of the bower.

In succumbing to his desire to withdraw from the duties and responsibilities of the former into the luxurious pleasuress of the latter he has undermined the definitions and assigned roles of male and female. Now neither is open to him; he is in limbo. A reading such as given above would fit well with Keats's general ambivalence concerning romance and the bower. Would it further illuminate such figures as the serpent woman `Lamia' and the `Fair plumed Syren' Romance in `On sitting down to Read King Lean once again"? La Belle Dame Sans Merci O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful - a faery's child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery's song. She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange she said - "I love thee true." She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept, and sigh'd fill sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dream'd - Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side. 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!" I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. “La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad” by John Keats O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel’s granary is full, And the harvest’s done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful—a faery’s child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said— “I love thee true.” She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept and sighed full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. And there she lullèd me asleep, And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!— The latest dream I ever dreamt On the cold hill side. I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci Thee hath in thrall!” I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gapèd wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side. And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing. Source: Keats, John. “La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 24 June 2011.

Which words from the poem establish the setting and mood of the poem best? knight-at-arms, haggard, steed lady, eyes, bracelets, song sidelong, bend, sing, relish honey, language, kisses, asleep You have new items in your feed. Click to view. Question and answer “La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad” by John Keats O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel’s granary is full, And the harvest’s done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful—a faery’s child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery’s song. She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said— “I love thee true.” She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept and sighed full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. And there she lullèd me asleep, And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!— The latest dream I ever dreamt On the cold hill side. I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci Thee hath in thrall!” I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gapèd wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side. And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing. Source: Keats, John.

“La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 24 June 2011. Which words from the poem establish the setting and mood of the poem best? knight-at-arms, haggard, steed lady, eyes, bracelets, song sidelong, bend, sing, relish honey, language, kisses, asleep The words from the poem establish the setting and mood of the poem best is: knight-at-arms, reveals that he did experience the pains, as well as the pleasures, of love and that he resented the pains, [ particularly the loss of freedom that came with falling in love. ] Expert answered| Ceciliane |Points 60| John Keats - GCSE English - Marked by Teachers.com Keats. In the poems To Autumn, a lyrical portrayal of the season itself and La Belle Dame Sans Merci, a literary ballad featuring a despairing knight in a fairytale plot, The theme of nature is used to help appeal to the reader in both poems.

In 'To Autumn', for example, ''And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;/To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells/With a sweet kernel' portrays the sense that Autumn is seen a season of ripeness, calm and beauty by the poet. In addition the long vowel sounds in 'To Autumn' make it melodic as the words flow quite slowly and smoothly. and Then in 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' the nature is used as pathetic fallacy; 'The sedge is wither'd from the lake,/ And no birds sing.' Word count: 718 La Belle Dame Sans Merci Both women have an overpowering beauty that the men wish to last forever. One is kept alive through a dream and the other through literature. 'Shall I compare thee' compares the loved one's beauty to the beauty of a summer's day shown in line one; 'Shall I compare thee to a Summers day?' The poet shows that the lady is more beautiful than summer for many reasons. The use of the symbol : in line four shows that the points will be explained.

Word count: 783 Ode To Psyche Commentary Psyche meant 'soul' and Keats's poem emphasizes on the personal issues of religion and worship, regarding Psyche. The last stanza is the most important in the entire poem as it shows the poet's thoughts and feelings, enhanced by visual imagery as he describes his emotions with the help of nature and words. He talks about a mysterious, unknown forest, filled with expanding branches of pine trees, creeping up the precipices of mountains that provide a peaceful atmosphere to the altar to be built for Psyche. Word count: 987 analysis of "when we two parted" by John Keats They part with only half broken hearts as in the next line which is "with half hearts broken to sever for years". From this we see that they still have hope of meeting and reuniting even if it means after a long time. The grief can be seen on their faces which have grown pale and cold as in the line "pale grew thy cheek cold". This is because of their grief and sorrow.

People also become cold when they lack emotion and it later becomes evident that though the poet was probably "cold" because of grief, the one he was parting with wasn't so for the same reason. Word count: 1086 The Ode is used as a poetic form for philosophical contemplation. Compare two odes by Keats in the light of this observation Despite the fact of his deteriorating wellbeing, Keats continued to delve deeper into love and time. His mental understanding of what lies beyond was perhaps something that I could never even begin to contemplate. His dying wish was to have the words: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water," on his gravestone when he died on 23rd February, 1821. Writing his most famous odes in his dying years was a sign of great character; I think that being able to face such a prospect of dying young, his mind matured faster than that of others. Word count: 3463 Compare the Way in which the Romantic poet Keats presents paradox and contrast with close reference to at least three poems The odes were his most personal forms of poetry.

Because of his life; the death of his brother, his diagnosis of tuberculosis, and his experience of rejection by women, his poems include negative capability. This is the ability to contemplate the world without having to understand the principals behind what you are seeing; the philosophy of his poems. In Keats' letter to his brothers, December 1817, he wrote, "I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." Word count: 2961 jonh keats The first phrase that struck me was "for a long dreary season, comes a day," which suggested to me that something had happened over a long period of time, and also that a day of rest had finally appeared. One word that particularly interested me was "dreary," because dreary is a mood of unhappiness and dullness. Another line that gives me this feeling is "the anxious month, relieved from its pains." Word count: 594 Write an appreciation of 'To Autumn'. Consider poetic techniques, use of imagery, diction, rhythm etc, appeals to senses, the effectiveness of the poem for the reader, must be hand written.

An example of this is line 2, 'Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.' This I believe means that Autumn is in cooperation with the life giving sun to ripen the crops. Also he compares Autumn and Spring through personification by saying, 'Where are the songs of Spring,' and, 'thou hast thy music too.' Both these seasons have been personified which shows that maybe Autumn is not Mother Nature, but that each season is a different person with a different personality. As an example this could mean that Summer may be uncomfortable climatically, whereas Autumn may have a great climate. Word count: 754 Analyse the first chapter of Keats "To Autumn" The consonance of the m, l and s sounds in the line first line of the first stanza, "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness," sets the melancholic tone carried throughout. The alliteration of "mists," and "mellow," and the internal rhyme of "mists," and "fruitfulness," enables the reader to associate each word with the other so where fruitfulness would usually be seen as a positive act of nature is juxtaposed by the modifier "mellow," to create a somber tone.

The first sense of constant change is brought about through the personification of the "maturing sun." Word count: 571 Keats' popularity stems from his ability to engage the senses and take us away from our mundane lives to a better place. How far do you agree? Homer was in fact an ancient Greek poet who wrote 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey'. 'On first looking into Chapman's Homer' illustrates the themes of exploration and discovery which is shown through traveling. "Realms of gold" used in the opening of the poem shows discovery as it is a metaphor for Homer's writing. The sonnet is divided into two different ideas. There is a clear transition between the octet and the sestet, taking the reader through Keats' adaptation of Homer's experiences. The theme of exploration dominates the octet. It creates a metaphor of the poet as a literary adventurer as it describes Keats' knowledge and understanding prior to reading Homer's poetry. Word count: 1388 Keats gains inspiration from many sources, the most important of which is the natural world.

Explore the varied poetic uses Keats makes of nature in the 'Ode on Melancholy' and 'Ode to Autumn' Negative images are displayed, "No, no" telling you not to reject melancholy but learn to accept it. Poisonous plants are mentioned showing the idea of suicide, "wolf's-bane" and its "poisonous wine" suggests death and sickness through imagery of colour and the idea of pain. The first stanza urges you not to try and escape pain but to learn from it. Poison is referred to again in the final stanza in order to show Keats' connection with the natural world. He refers to a bee sipping nectar, a very common and in fact pleasurable thing for a bee yet it is vastly turning into poison. Word count: 1757 La Belle Dame Sand Merci The poem starts with a question. ' O what can ail thee, Knight-at-arms' asks the speaker to the knight, as he is 'palely loitering' in a barren site. The knight is lacking life and vitality. Similarly, 'the sedge is wither'd' and 'no birds sing'. The hill mirrors the knight's lifeless and pale state.

The anonymous speaker focuses on the physical and emotional condition of the knight. He says that the knight is 'haggard' and 'woe-begone', thus the knight seems to be lacking vital energy possibly because of life and work, he seems to be worn out. Word count: 1402 A particularly powerful portrayal of nature. Examine the techniques the poet uses in order to present nature to the reader and say how effective you found the depiction of nature to be." 'Ode to Autumn' is a pastoral poem written by John Keats The very first line of the poem states that autumn is a "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness". This idea is continued throughout the stanza by Keats' use of words such as "swell" and "plump", which all suggest that the fruits of the plants and trees have become fully-grown and have matured. The impression of maturity in nature is repeated in the same stanza as Keats refers to the "maturing sun". This evidence creates the notion that autumn is a time of richness and opulence as the fruit is always plump and ripened.

It could also be seen as a time of readiness since the ripe fruit is at its best and is ready to be eaten. Word count: 1128 This paper is a critical analysis of Keat's piece, 2. Abstract This paper is a critical analysis of Keat's piece, "To Autumn". It also compares and contrasts the interpretation of the work by critics and the casual reader. The writer first analyzes the title and examines how this connects with the rest of the poem. It then takes the poem stanza by stanza and looks at the different ways that these can be read by both the layman and people experience in criticizing poetry. From the Paper: "When deciding on what poem to explicate, John Keats' To Autumn came to mind due to its seasonal theme and its lush lyric-like lines that roll off the tongue. Word count: 1230 Ode To Autumn", John Keatsa) This poem is an excellent portrayal of a term dismissed as being either "too cold" or "too windy" to be classed as a special term ode, as it is a term for the year later on in its cycle, and it is aged and is effective because of that.

The second stanza directly addresses the autumn, and uses pronouns such as "thee" and "thy". These suggest a respect present between the poet and the Term, with a familiar feeling creeping in as he says "Thee sitting carelessly on a granary floor". This is an effective image, the poet seeing the term as being wheat or cereal on the floor, where it usually is at the time this poem is set. Word count: 949 Analysis of Keats' 'Ode To Autumn'Arguably Keats' greatest ode is 'To Autumn'. The poem features many a Romantic quality, particularly through its use of sensual All three consist of eleven lines, and each stanza starts with an alternate rhyme scheme. The poem is written in Iambic Pentameter. Stanza one represents the beginning of not just autumn, but of a day, and most importantly of life. Keats describes autumn as the season of "mists"; this could be seen not only as a description of autumn, but also of the morning. This consequently enhances the idea of the beginning. Stanza one uses an abundance of tactile imagery to help the reader share Keats' appreciation of autumn.

Keats uses personification to amplify the greatness of the season, comparing it to a "close bosom-friend" of the sun; he describes it as a season of "ripefulness", the implication of growth and health. Word count: 697 Rousseau stated that 'I felt before I thought' captured the spirit of the Romantic Movement. Referring in detail to one of Keats' poems, illustrate the qualities which make Keats a Romantic poet. In 1811 Keats became the apprentice of an apothecary and it was during this time that he became particularly interested in poetry. In 1815 he left his apprenticeship to take up medicine at Guy's Hospital. Within a year, however, Keats had abandoned this profession for poetry. He soon became part of a group of writers including the famous Romantic poet Shelley. Keats' first collection of poetry was published in March 1817, but did not sell well. Following a tour to the Lake District in 1818, Keats returned to find his brother Tom dying.

Word count: 2052 Compare Keats's poems 'To Autumn' and 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' There is an apparent sign of death and illness in both poems, in 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' the night is describes as pale, and much of nature has been destroyed or damaged, perhaps due to the climate approaching winter, 'Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing.' The significance of the disappearance of the birds and animals suggests that because it is nearing winter, the birds have flown south to migrate. There is a sheer sense of completion in 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' for the reason that the harvest is done, and the squirrel has collected all of his food that will get him through the change of season. Word count: 874 "Consider La Belle Dame sans Merci and To Autumn by John Keats" Throughout the poem it describes the knight's feelings and what he sees. It ends very openly as we are not sure whether it all really happened or whether it was a dream.

The nature of the poem is very deeply described and even the people included in the poem are compared to nature, 'she found me roots of relish sweet.' The knight in the poem suffers from symptoms such as, 'alone and palely loitering,' the paleness is a symptom that is a sign of TB so maybe Keats is saying that he is the knight. Word count: 1347 'To Autumn', 'Autumn' and 'October Dawn' that each of the poets has different opinions and feelings on Autumn and they also interpret Autumn in their poems in different ways too. The three poets John Keats, John Clare and Ted Hughes In all three of the poems weather is a key part in all of the poems and is stated often. In the poem 'To Autumn' the sun is mentioned as a 'close bosom-friend of the maturing sun' by this I believe he is saying that the sun and autumn work together to make it look beautiful and grow all the fruit to perfection. John Keats mentions a lot about the wind in his poem and says 'thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind' I think this means that the wind is gentle and it lightly blows and picks up things swiftly and softly.

Word count: 1148 To autumn 'to plump the hazel shells with sweet kernel'- make them better and crunchier and more ripe. 6. 'to set budding more and still more, later flowers for the bees' to make spring happen again and attract bees. Their clammy shells- shows that the bees are full of energy This could also mean that the flowers are full of pollen. * 'until they think warm days will never cease' the bees are being tricked, they think its wonderful, but then they'll suddenly die. Word count: 821 Comparing Wordsworth and Keats' Romantic Poetry. Both these poems are Sonnets and in iambic pentameter so a regular rhythm is created throughout both poems. The rhyming scheme of "CUWB" is "ABBA, ABBA" in the fist few lines just like "OTS". The poems differ in the rhyme scheme at the end "CUWB" is "CDCDCD" while "OTS" ends witha rhyme scheme of "CDEDEC" a more complex scheme reflecting more complex ideas. Throughout the poem Keats repeats some sounds, like echoes in the sea, he creates this effect by by repeating the letter S.

Wordsworth uses alliterantion too to emphasise the idea of the cities Majesty. Take, "sight, so, its" "houses, seem, asleep" which is designed to persuade us and to create a greater impact on the reader. Word count: 1106 Compare how nature is presented in two Romantic Poems So, even when we are happy, we think of bad things. However, the skylark is always happy and always looking on the bright side of things. In addition, it is compared to a glowworm, showing how the bird has wonderful colours, "Like a glowworm golden." It also goes on to say that despite its "aerial hue" or colours the bird is unnoticed to the glowworm when in the air "scattering unbeholden" as it is close to the ground "in a dell of dew" or "Among the grass and flowers, which screens it from the view." Word count: 1890 Compare & Contrast the theme of nature as presented by the poet 'Keats' and 'Hardy' The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy is a more bleak, dark, dull poem.

The title 'Darkling Thrush' suddenly illustrates to the reader that the poem is written in a dark style of writing. This is shown through Hardy's choice of Diction and his style of writing. Words like 'Haunted, Desolate Hard and Corpse' allow the reader to build an image of an isolated landscape. His strong use of alliteration creates a dull image in the reader's mind examples of this alliteration are 'Dregs made Desolate', 'bine-Stems Scored the Sky' and 'Think There Trembled Through'. Word count: 641 The poems I have chosen to study are 'Abbey Tomb' by Patricia Beer, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' by T.S. Elliot and 'To Autumn' by John Keats. This also implies his frustration that the other monks did not listen to him because his complain is made directly to the reader. With the use of the first person Beer is able to create what resembles a first hand account of the incident, which is being retold to the reader. 'We stood still...staring at the door,' the monks were waiting for the Vikings.

'We heard them passing by...only I could catch the sound of prowling men...everybody else agreed to ring the bells,' the monks then think the Vikings had left and decided to ring the bells; again we see Word count: 1141 No. of results pages: 11 1 Enjoying "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", by John Keats Enjoying "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", by John Keats by Ed Friedlander, M.D. scalpel_blade@yahoo.com No texting or chat messages, please. Ordinary e-mails are welcome. This pursued through volumes might take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration. -- Keats (Dec. 21, 1817) I'm a physician and medical school teacher in real life. I've liked Keats since I was in high school. Generally I enjoy the classics because they say what most of us have thought, but much more clearly. The real John Keats is far more interesting than the languid aesthete of popular myth. Keats was born in 1795, the son of a stable attendant.

As a young teen, he was extroverted, scrappy, and liked fistfighting. In 1810 he became an apprentice to an apothecary-surgeon, and in 1815 he went to medical school at Guy's Hospital in London. In 1816, although he could have been licensed to prepare and sell medicines, he chose to devote his life entirely to writing poetry. In 1818, Keats took a walking tour of the north of England and Scotland, and nursed his brother Tom during his fatal episode of tuberculosis. By 1819, Keats realized that he, too, had tuberculosis. If you believe that most adult TB is from reactivation of a childhood infection, then he probably caught it from his mother. If you believe (as I do) that primary progressive TB is common, then he may well have caught it from Tom. Or it could have come from anybody. TB was common in Keats's era. Despite his illness and his financial difficulties, Keats wrote a tremendous amount of great poetry during 1819, including "La Belle Dame Sans Merci". On Feb.

3, 1820, Keats went to bed feverish and feeling very ill. He coughed, and noticed blood on the sheet. His friend Charles Brown looked at the blood with him. Keats said, "I know the color of that blood; it is arterial blood. I cannot be deceived. That drop of blood is my death warrant." (Actually, TB is more likely to invade veins than arteries, but the blood that gets coughed up turns equally red the instant it contacts oxygen in the airways. The physicians of Keats's era confused brown, altered blood with "venous blood", and fresh red blood with "arterial blood".) Later that night he had massive hemoptysis. Seeking a climate that might help him recover, he left England for Italy in 1820, where he died of his tuberculosis on Feb. 23, 1821. His asked that his epitaph read, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." Percy Shelley, in "Adonais", for his own political reasons, claimed falsely that bad reviews of Keats's poems (Blackwoods, 1817) had caused Keats's death.

Charles Brown referred to Keats's "enemies" on Keats's tombstone to get back at those who had cared for him during his final illness. And so began the nonsense about Keats, the great poet of sensuality and beauty, being a sissy and a crybaby. There is actually much of the modern rock-and-roll star in Keats. His lyrics make sense, he tried hard to preserve his health, and he found beauty in the simplest things rather than in drugs (which were available in his era) or wild behavior. But in giving in totally to the experiences and sensations of the moment, without reasoning everything out, Keats could have been any of a host of present-day radical rockers. O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts! It is a "Vision in the form of Youth" a shadow of reality to come and this consideration has further convinced me... that we shall enjoy ourselves here after having what we called happiness on Earth repeated in a finer tone and so repeated. And yet such a fate can only befall those who delight in Sensation rather than hunger as you do after Truth. -- Keats to Benjamin Bailey, Nov.

22, 1817 If you are curious to learn more about Keats, you'll find he was tough, resilient, and likeable. "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" exists in two versions. The first was the original one penned by Keats on April 21, 1819. The second was altered (probably at the suggestion of Leigh Hunt, and you might decide mostly for the worse) for its publication in Hunt's Indicator on May 20, 1819. Manuscript Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing. Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful - a faery's child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

V I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery's song. She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said - 'I love thee true'. She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept and sighed full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. And there she lulled me asleep And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! - The latest dream I ever dreamt On the cold hill side. X 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!' I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill's side.

XII And this is why I sojourn here Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing. Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever dew; And on thy cheek a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful - a faery's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. V I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sideways would she lean, and sing A faery's song. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.

She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew; And sure in language strange she said - 'I love thee true.' She took me to her elfin grot, And there she gazed, and sighed deep, And there I shut her wild wild eyes So kiss'd to sleep. And there we slumber'd on the moss, And there I dream'd - Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill side. X 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!' I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke, and found me here On the cold hill side. XII And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. The Story The poet meets a knight by a woodland lake in late autumn. The man has been there for a long time, and is evidently dying. The knight says he met a beautiful, wild-looking woman in a meadow.

He visited with her, and decked her with flowers. She did not speak, but looked and sighed as if she loved him. He gave her his horse to ride, and he walked beside them. He saw nothing but her, because she leaned over in his face and sang a mysterious song. She spoke a language he could not understand, but he was confident she said she loved him. He kissed her to sleep, and fell asleep himself. He dreamed of a host of kings, princes, and warriors, all pale as death. They shouted a terrible warning -- they were the woman's slaves. And now he was her slave, too. Awakening, the woman was gone, and the knight was left on the cold hillside. Notes "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" means "the beautiful woman without mercy." It's the title of an old French court poem by Alain Chartier. ("Merci" in today's French is of course "thank you".) Keats probably knew a current translation which was supposed to be by Chaucer. In Keats's "Eve of Saint Agnes", the lover sings this old song as he is awakening his beloved. "Wight" is an archaic name for a person.

Like most people, I prefer "knight at arms" to "wretched wight", and obviously the illustrators of the poem did, too. ("Until I met her, I was a man of action!") "Sedge" is any of several grassy marsh plants which can dominate a wet meadow. "Fever dew" is the sweat (diaphoresis) of sickness. Keats originally wrote "death's lily" and "death's rose", and he refers to the flush and the pallor of illness. If the poet can actually see the normal red color leaving the cheeks of the knight, then the knight must be going rapidly into shock, i.e., the poet has come across the knight right as he is dying, and is recording his last words. (The knight is too enwrapped in his own experience to notice.) Medieval fairies (dwellers in the realm of faerie) were usually human-sized, though Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream allowed them (by negative capability) to be sometimes-diminutive. "Sidelong" means sideways. A "fragrant zone" is a flower belt. "Elfin" means "pertaining to the elves", or the fairy world.

A "grot" is of course a grotto. "Betide" means "happen", and "woe betide" is a more romantical version of the contemporary expression "---- happens". "Gloam" means gloom. A "thrall" is an abject slave. The Poem's Inspiration Keats had a voluminous correspondence, and we can reconstruct the events surrounding the writing of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci". He wrote the poem on April 21, 1819. It appears in the course of a letter to his brother George, usually numbered 123. You may enjoy looking this up to see how he changed the poem even while he was writing it. At the time, Keats was very upset over a hoax that had been played on his brother Tom, who was deceived in a romantic liaison. He was also undecided about whether to enter into a relationship with Fanny Brawne, who he loved but whose friends disapproved of the possible match with Keats. Shortly before the poem was written, Keats recorded a dream in which he met a beautiful woman in a magic place which turned out to be filled with pallid, enslaved lovers.

Just before the poem was written, Keats had read Spenser's account of the false Florimel, in which an enchantress impersonates a heroine to her boyfriend, and then vanishes. All these experiences probably went into the making of this powerful lyric. In the letter, Keats followed the poem with a chuckle. Why four kisses -- you will way -- why four? Because I wish to restrain the headlong impetuosity of my Muse -- she would have fain said "score" without hurting the rhyme -- but we must temper the imagination as the critics say with judgment. I was obliged to choose an even number that both eyes might have fair play: and to speak truly I think two apiece quite sufficient. Suppose I had said seven; there would have been three and a half apiece -- a very awkward affair -- and well got out of on my side -- Keats's Themes John Keats's major works do not focus on religion, ethics, morals, or politics. He mostly just writes about sensations and experiencing the richness of life.

In his On Melancholy , Keats suggests that if you want to write sad poetry, don't try to dull your senses, but focus on intense experience (not even always pleasant -- peonies are nice, being b_tched out by your girlfriend isn't), and remember that all things are transient. Only a poet can really savor the sadness of that insight. In Lamia , a magic female snake falls in love with a young man, and transforms by magic into a woman. They live together in joy, until a well-intentioned scholar ruins the lovers' happiness by pointing out that it's a deception. Until the magic spell is broken by the voice of reason and science, they are both sublimely happy. It invites comparison with "La Belle Dame Sans Merci". Richard Dawkins took a line from "Lamia" for the title of his book, Unweaving the Rainbow, against the familiar (romantic?) complaints that studying nature (as it really is) makes you less appreciative of the world's beauty. (I agree with Dawkins. I haven't found that being scientific spoils anybody's appreciation of beauty.

-- Ed.) In On a Grecian Urn , Keats admires a moment of beauty held forever in a work of art. The eternal moment, rather than the stream of discursive, rational thought, led Keats to conclude, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty -- that is all you know, or ever need to know." To a Nightingale recounts Keats's being enraptured (by a singing bird) out of his everyday reality. He stopped thinking and reasoning for a while, and after the experience was over, he wondered which state of consciousness was the real one and which was the dream. To Autumn is richly sensual, and contrasts the joys of autumn to the more-poetized joys of spring. Keats was dying at the time, and as in "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", Keats is probably describing, on one level, his own final illness -- a time of completion, consummation, and peace. Ask your instructor about Keats's "pleasure thermometer". The pleasure of nature and music gives way to the pleasure of sexuality and romance which in turn give way to the pleasure of visionary dreaming. What's It All About? Keats focuses on how experiencing beauty gives meaning and value to life.

In "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", Keats seems to be telling us about something that may have happened, or may happen someday, to you. You discover something that you think you really like. You don't really understand it, but you're sure it's the best thing that's ever happened to you. You are thrilled. You focus on it. You give in to the beauty and richness and pleasure, and let it overwhelm you. Then the pleasure is gone. Far more than a normal letdown, the experience has left you crippled emotionally. At least for a while, you don't talk about regretting the experience. And it remains an important part of who you feel that you are. Drug addiction (cocaine, heroin, alcohol) is what comes to my mind first. We've all known addicts who've tasted the pleasures, then suffered the health, emotional, and personal consequences. Yet I've been struck by how hard it is to rehabilitate these people, even when hope seems to be gone. They prefer to stagnate.

Vampires were starting to appear in literature around Keats's time, and the enchantress of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is one of a long tradition of supernatural beings who have charmed mortals into spiritual slavery. Bram Stoker's "Dracula" got much of its bite from the sexuality and seductiveness of the vampire lord. Anyone who has seen or read "Coraline" can explore whether the "Beldame", who offers love and then imprisons her victims, is related to Keats's "Belle Dame". Explore the origins of the word in folklore. The theme of "Coraline" seems to be that if parents do not give attention to, and attend to the emotional needs of, their children... then other people will. And they will be the wrong people. Failed romantic relationships (ended romances, marriages with the love gone) account for an astonishing number of suicides. Rather than giving up and moving on, men and women find themselves disabled, but not expressing sorrow that the relationship occurred. Ideologies bring enormous excitement and happiness to new believers. They offer camaraderie and the thrill of thinking that you are intellectually and morally superior and about to change the world for the better.

Members of both the Goofy Right and the Goofy Left seemed very happy on my college campus, and I've seen the satisfaction that participation in ideological movements brings people ever since. People who leave these movements (finding out that the movements are founded on lies) are often profoundly saddened and lonely. Religious emotionalism can have an enormous impact, and some lives are permanently changed for the better at revivals. But some people who have come upon a faith commitment emotionally find themselves devastated when the emotions fade, and become unable to function even at their old level. The Vilia is a Celtic woodland spirit, celebrated by Lehar and Ross in a love song from "The Merry Widow", 1905. The song itself was popular during the 1950's. The song deals with a common human experience -- never being able to recover the first ardor of love. The show itself celebrates that people CAN find love again. There once was a VIlia, a witch of the wood, A hunter beheld her alone as she stood, The spell of her beauty upon him was laid; He looked and he longed for the magical maid!

For a sudden tremor ran, Right through the love bwildered man, And he sighed as a hapless lover can. Vilia, O Vilia! the witch of the wood! Would I not die for you, dear, if I could? Vilia, O Vilia, my love and my bride, Softly and sadly he sighed. The wood maiden smiled and no answer she gave, But beckoned him into the shade of the cave, He never had known such a rapturous bliss, No maiden of mortals so sweetly can kiss! As before her feet he lay, She vanished in the wood away, And he called vainly till his dying day! Vilia, O Vilia, my love and my bride! Softly and sadly he sighed, Sadly he sighed, "Vilia." Vilia -- organ chorded version Vilia -- Chet Atkins, jazzier guitar version Beauty itself, fully appreciated (as only a poet can), must by its impermanence devastate a person. Or so wrote Keats in his "To Melancholy", where the souls of poets hang as "cloudy trophies" in the shrine of Melancholy.

My experience has been more in keeping with Blake's: "He who kisses a joy as it flies / Lives in eternity's sunrise." Keats praised Shakespeare's "negative capability". If I understand the passage correctly, he's referring to the lack of unambiguous messages in Shakespeare's works. Instead of preaching or moralizing, Shakespeare's works mirror life, and let the reader take away his or her own conclusions. In "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" Keats is letting the reader decide whether the knight's experience was worth it. Keats (the master of negative capability) records no reply to the dying knight. For Discussion What do people mean by "romanticism"? Some common features of works from the movement are: simple language; emphasis on beauty, emotion, and sensuality; emphasis on unreason. In the middle ages, ballads were popular songs that told stories. Keats has imitated the ballad form, and you can find more ballads in the library. Why did Keats choose this meter for his poem? The short-footed final lines of each stanza come as a bit of a surprise, and because of the spondees, they take as long to recite as the other lines.

Their sudden slowness reminds me of the knight's loss. Unless you choose to use your own "negative capability", try to figure out the story. Is the woman a wicked temptress, trying to destroy men for caprice or sheer cruelty? Or are her tactics her way of defending her life and/or the people of her supernatural nation? Or is she, too, unable to fully join with mortal men, and as sad and frustrated as the men whose lives she has touched? Does the knight stay by the lake because he sees no further purpose in living, or because his experience has redefined him as a person, or because he expects the woman to return? What happened to his horse? Is the knight a ghost? Why did Keats start the poem as he did? He paints a late-autumn scene ("the squirrel's granary is full"). Is this setting the scene, or using nature to mirror a knight's condition? Is there perhaps a more sinister / magical reason that the sedge is withering, or that no birds are singing?

(Rachel Carson is said to have chosen the title "Silent Spring" -- which correctly made the public aware of the danger that widespread DDT use had on the health of birds -- after remembering this poem.) Conservatives have suggested that the enchantress in the poem is a nature-cult that leads to demonic possession. Be this as it may, what is the fascination of the supposed supernatural and magical? Do you know anybody who has had a good and/or a bad experience with something like this? To include this page in a bibliography, you may use this format: Friedlander ER (1999) Enjoying "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by John Keats Retrieved Dec. 25, 2003 from For Modern Language Association sticklers, the name of the site itself is "The Pathology Guy" and the Sponsoring Institution or Organization is Ed Friedlander MD. Links "English Teaching Life" has evidently used this page to instruct people who are learning the language. I am very pleased by this, and commend Jan as a teacher. The Vale of Soul Making There's something else. As I've mentioned, Keats does not deal with conventional religion in his poems.

In several of his private letters, he explicitly stated that he did not believe in Christianity, or in any of the other received faiths of his era. As he faced death, it's clear that Keats did struggle to find meaning in life. And in the same letter (123) that contains the original of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", Keats gives his answer. The common cognomen of this world among the misguided and superstitious is "a vale of tears" from which we are to be redeemed by a certain arbitrary interposition of God and taken to Heaven. What a little circumscribed straightened notion! Call the world, if you please, "the Vale of Soul Making". Then you will find out the use of the world.... There may be intelligences or sparks of the divinity in millions -- but they are not Souls till they acquire identities, till each one is personally itself. Intelligences are atoms of perception -- they know and they see and they are pure, in short they are God. How then are Souls to be made? How then are these sparks which are God to have identity given them -- so as ever to possess a bliss peculiar to each one's individual existence.

How, but in the medium of a world like this? This point I sincerely wish to consider, because I think it a grander system of salvation than the Christian religion -- or rather it is a system of Spirit Creation... I can scarcely express what I but dimly perceive -- and yet I think I perceive it -- that you may judge the more clearly I will put it in the most homely form possible. I will call the world a school instituted for the purpose of teaching little children to read. I will call the human heart the hornbook used in that school. And I will call the child able to read, the soul made from that school and its hornbook. Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul? A place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways.... As various as the lives of men are -- so various become their souls, and thus does God make individual beings, souls, identical souls of the sparks of his own essence. This appears to me a faint sketch of a system of salvation which does not affront our reason and humanity... Keats believed that we begin as identical bits of God, and acquire individuality only by life-defining emotional experiences.

By doing this, we prepare ourselves for happiness in the afterlife. You may decide for yourself (or exercise negative capability) about whether you will believe Keats. But it's significant that this most intimate explanation of the personal philosophy behind his work follows a powerful lyric about emotional devastation. If Keats's philosophy is correct, then any intense experience -- even letting your life rot away after a failed relationship, or enduring the agony of heroin withdrawal, or dying young of tuberculosis -- is precious. (Perhaps Keats, medically trained and knowing he had been massively exposed, was foreseeing his own from TB -- he would have been pale and sweaty and unable to move easily.) Each goes into making you into a unique being. The idea is as radical as it sounds. And if you stay alert, you'll encounter similar ideas again and again, in some of the most surprising places. Diotima He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end.

And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" In the universe, there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source, which act upon a person's soul. The soul does not exist ab initio, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved, owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia. Planescape -- adventure gaming based on philosophies of life, where the Sensate faction lives out Keats's ideals. Dean Koontz, "Intensity" Mr.

Vess is not sure if there is such a thing as the immortal soul, but he is unshakably certain that if souls exist, we are not born with them in the same way that we are born with eyes and ears. He believes that the soul, if real, accretes in the same manner as a coral reef grows from the deposit of countless millions of calcareous skeletons secreted by marine polyp. We build the reef of the soul, however, not from dead polyps but from steadily accreted sensations through the course of a lifetime. In Vess's considered opinion, if one wishes to have a formidable soul -- or any soul at all -- one must open oneself to every possible sensation, plunge into the bottomless ocean of sensory stimuli that is our world, and experience with no consideration of good or bad, right or wrong, with no fear but only fortitude. I'm an MD, a pathologist in Kansas City, a mainstream Christian . a modernist , a skydiver , an adventure gamer , the world's busiest free internet physician , and a man who still enjoys books and ideas. New visitors to reset Jan. 30, 2005: I do not possess Keats's negative capability.

You get over a failed relationship by making a conscious decision to do so. I want to grab the horseman in the poem and yell, "Cowboy up!" or something. I suspect most visitors to this page would want to do exactly the same thing. If I don't share Keats's focus on beauty and sensation over everything else, I do appreciate him for his insights into the human heart. Teens: Stay away from drugs, work yourself extremely hard in class or at your trade, play sports if and only if you like it, and get out of abusive relationships by any means. If the grown-ups who support you are "difficult", act like you love them even if you're not sure that you do. It'll help you and them. The best thing anybody can say about you is, "That kid likes to work too hard and isn't taking it easy like other young people." Health and friendship. Like Keats, I had tuberculosis in 1978-82. It was memorable. I'm grateful to modern, reality-based science for my cure.

Question: Which poem by Keats opens with the words "O what can all thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering"?
Answer: La Belle Dame Sans Merci