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John Keats Contextual Information

• Despite his death at the age of 25, Keats is one of the greatest English poets and a key figure in the Romantic movement. He has become the epitome of the young, beautiful, doomed poet.
• John Keats was born on 31 October 1795 in London. His father worked at a livery stable, but died in 1804. His mother remarried, but died of tuberculosis in 1810.
• Keats was educated at a school in Enfield. When he left at 16, he was apprenticed to a surgeon. He wrote his first poems in 1814. In 1816, he abandoned medicine to concentrate on poetry. His first volume of poetry was published the following year.
• In 1818, Keats nursed his brother Tom through the final stages of tuberculosis, the disease that had killed their mother. Tom died in December and Keats moved to his friend Charles Brown's house in Hampstead. There he met and fell deeply in love with a neighbour, the 18-year old Fanny Brawne.

Death

• From September 1819, Keats produced little more poetry. His financial difficulties were now severe. He became engaged to Fanny Brawne, but with no money there was little prospect of them marrying.
• Early in 1820, Keats began to display symptoms of tuberculosis. His second volume of poetry was published in July, but he was by now very ill. In September, Keats and his friend Joseph Severn left for the warmer weather of Italy, in the hope that this would improve Keats' health. When they reached Rome, Keats was confined to bed. Severn nursed him devotedly, but Keats died in Rome on 23 February 1821. He was buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.

La Belle Dame sans Merci

• Story of love and death
• Rebellion against the pains/negatives of love.
• Written in 1819.
• Edmund Spencer- influences this poem "The Faerie Queen".
• Similarities between Keats' ballad and this poem by Spencer.
• Ballad--> song ----> "Romantics look at love and suffering" "Focuses on more 'realistic' view of love".
• Message= love is deceptive, pleasant at the beginning, blindly loving, discovering the truth, it ends and you are left alone.

What is a ballad?

• Love song ---> emotive
• meant to be sung
• Refrain
• Narrative ---> tells a story
• Rhythm --> consistent
• Each stanza is a quatrain
• Iambic- unstressed then stressed.
• Metre -->6 syllables (Trimetre) or 8 syllables (Quatrametre.
• Rhyme Scheme --> usually a b a b

Poetry Terminology

• Enjambment --> The continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line in a stanza.
• Rhyme --> The repetition of syllables, typically at the end of a verse line.
• Octave --> A verse form consisting of 8 lines.
• Form --> The Structure and Shape of the text.
• Fricative --> 'f'', 'th' and 'v' sounds.
• Stanza --> A group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem.
• Caesura --> A pause in the middle of a line of verse.
• Sestet --> A verse form consisting of 6 lines.
• Assonance --> Literary device that poets use to create rhyme with the repetition of vowel sounds.
• Rhyme Scheme --> Ordered pattern of rhymes at the end of the lines of a verse; abcd

Poetry Terms

• Metre --> basic rhythmic structure of a verse
• Alliteration --> Rhyme in a line with the repetition of consonant sounds
• Archaic --> a word or language which is deemed as old and not in everyday use.
• Metaphor --> comparrison which states something is actually something else
• Synaesthesia --> merging of the senses
• Sibilance --> consonants are used more than twice in succession to create a hissing sound.
• Simile --> comparison which states that something is ''like'' or ''as'' something else.
• Quatrain --> Verse consisting of 4 lines.
• Plosive --> 'p', 'k', 't', 'd', 'g' and 'b' sounds.
• Rhythm --> a strong, regular repeated pattern in movement or sound.

The Romantic Movement

• established in the 1740s
• the enlightenment period came prior to this- a time when there were advancements in science, transport and electricity.
• 1750 --> Industrial revolution
• Romantic movement --> moves away from strict religion --> started in Europe
• Seen in Art and Literature.
• It focused on;
• Childhood --> An innocent and carefree time
• Nature --> The beauty and power of it
• Spiritual Beliefs --> looking beyond logic and reason to explain life.
• Feelings + emotions --> listening to your h