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Keats Poetry: context and critcism - Coggle Diagram
Keats Poetry: context and critcism
Lamia
his source was a story found in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1621
According to Greek mythology, the Lamia was a monster in the form of a woman (or half snake, half woman) who ate people’s children because her own had been stolen away.
‘Both male characters have serious short comings.- Lycius may be attractive in many ways but he is gullible, over-emotional and capable of being cruel
Apollonius may be able to assess situations clearly but he is unbendingly puritanical and lacks humanity.
"not even Lamia's exquisite illusionary dream mode can elide the reality of death"
"Apollonius represents an impulse towards self knowledge and Lamia is aligned with the illusionary dream of an idealised mode of being"
Apollonius and Lamia are not diametrically opposite rather they are two distinct aspects of the same illusionary mode
the act of matrimony leads only to the preparation of Lycius' funeral symbolised by his marriage robe becoming his death shroud
The Eve of St Agnes
Beadsman's frosty prayers and penance amid cold ashes contrast sharply with the warmth and brightness of the party
The poem begins and ends in the cold of winter, accompanied by images of death, stillness and the failure of the mind and body
the party of aristocrats is an ostentatious display made to seem superficial, just a veneer which covers a society characterised by violence, mental instability and anxiety
A characteristic of the Medieval era in which the poem is set is the practice of pilgrimage
Madeline is depicted as a saint or angel ,She is associated with heaven rather than earth, with white (‘blanch’d linen’) and cool moonlight, so Porphyro’s ravishment of her is all the more dramatic.
An important idea in the poem is that passion is fraught with danger
The poem celebrates human imagination and the warmth of love over cold piety and hatred
The poem is also one which celebrates the idea of enchantment – as if waking life needs some degree of magic or fantasy if it is to be humanly fulfilling.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
The tone is haunting and often ominous. This effect is created partly through the use of frequent repetitions
spare, terse language – very different from the sorts of luxuriant effects we find in poems such as the Ode to Autumn
Keats’ use of language emphasises the absence of colour.‘pale kings’, ‘pale warriors’, ‘death pale’. Repetition is also part of the poem’s dream-like nature
He employs a four-line stanza (quatrain) which rhymes a b c b. As is frequently the case with ballads, the lines are not strictly regular but generally have eight syllables
This shortening compared to ballad metre of the final line gives each stanza a rather abrupt, slightly ominous ending, as if it were not quite finished.
Isabella
she never resorts to transcendental fictions of consolation instead deriving comfort from what is left of Lorenzo's physical body
readers forced to share not simply in the initial delight of the lovers but in the responsibility of the discovery of their secret
Lorenzo's demise emanates from his social illegitimacy
Isabella does not produce a consoling fiction of the illusionary dream mode
Isabella's obsession with Lorenzo acts as a grotesque parody of the life-perfecting ideal sought out by the questor of romance
the concealment of Lorenzo's head is important because it substitutes rather perversely the secret love she once shared with him