Consider La Belle Dame sans Merci and To Autumn by John Keats Essay

Consider La Belle Dame sans Merci and To Autumn by John Keats John Keats was born in 1795 and died in 1821. He lived a short life as he suffered from tuberculosis, and died in his early twenties. Keats is one of the great Romantic poets of the early 19th century. Most of his poetry was crammed into the last few years of his life, which is why some of his poems relate death. He had a great love for nature, which was always included in his poetry in some way. He saw his mother and his brother die of TB when he was younger so when he realised he too had the illness he knew what was in store. He went to live in Italy because many people believed that the temperature would help the illness. This is when are where he wrote the two poems we will be comparing, le belle dams sand merci and to autumn. His poem ‘La Belle Dams sans Merci,’ meaning ‘A Beautiful Woman without Merci,’ is about knight falling in love with an evil fairy. 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. Another symptom of tb that keats would have had to live with is ‘with anguish moist and fever dew,’ meaning he was in pain and coming down with a fever and is clammy. The atmosphere in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ changes throughout the poem. At the beginning it seems very slow and depress... ...does not rush, but the rhythm in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ is slow and heavy and perhaps suggests the weakness of the knight as if he had been robbed of all his strength. The rhyme of ‘To Autumn’ is regular and may reflect the regularity of seasons throughout the year. Whereas, as the rhyme of ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ is regular yet predictable. The repetition in the last line of certain stanzas gives the poem a melancholic tone, ‘on a cold hill’s side.’ Finally, in ‘To Autumn’ there is a positive attitude towards death, as if it is known and acceptable to be a part of life and as a part of life’s cycle. But in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ Keats attitude to death is bitterer and not as acceptable. It is possible that the lady in the poem is a metaphor for his illness which is something which he came across and has stolen the rest of his life from him.