Obsessive Love- La Belle Dame Sans Merci

La Belle Dame Sans Merci- John Keates

You should know the drill by now, have a read

Summary

So this poem starts off with an unnamed speaker, who comes across a "knight at arms" alone, and on the verge of death in a field. After asking him (twice) what's' wrong, the knight takes over as narrator and answers the rest of the poem. He talks of how he met a beautiful girl in the fields, and he gave her flowers and let her ride his horse (possible sex reference here) and they she invited him back to her fairy cave. After she had "lulled" him to sleep, he had a crazy nightmare, about other people who were now dead, and then he woke up, alone, on the side of a hill somewhere. 

Breakdown

Stanza 1- The poem opes with a question, an unnamed speaker asks a "knight at arms" what's wrong, or what's "ail(ing)" him. This is the first mention in the poem that he is "pale" and be warned, this word is repeated a lot. 

There is a foreboding tone right from the first stanza of this poem. Also, there is imagery, in the references that are made to "wither'd' plants" and the "lack of birdsong" which is suggestive of the lonely, desolate surroundings. There is also consonance of the L sound, which makes the line sound very musical. Also, the word "palely" creates an internal rhyme with "ail thee" from the previous line. By associating those words together, it is made clear that the knight's paleness has to do with whatever it is that is ailing him.

Stanza 2- There is echoing of the first line of the stanza that is in the second one as well. There are two more adjectives used to describe the knight so, he is "haggard", "woe-begone" which highlights how deathly and drawn that he looks. 

Stanza 3- There is flower imagery that is used to emphasise how pale and haggard the knight looks. This is portrayed by the metaphor, "I see a lily on thy brow", conveying his paleness. There is also a double-meaning as lilies are the flowers associated with death,in Western culture, and contributes to the deathly feel of the poem. There is also a rose metaphor, ""And on thy cheek a fading rose/ Fast withered too"" which suggests that colour has left his cheek and his beauty (represented by the rose) has withered. 

Stanza 4- There is a change in narrative in this stanza. The "I" is the knight, rather than the original speaker. HE describes how he met a "beautiful lady" in the fields, which is an idealistic description, which is quite characteristic of the Romantic era. She is described as. "Full beautiful" and  "A faery's child"", which creates the image of an enchanting and mysterious person. 

Stanza 5-  There is more nature imagery, about flowers, but there is also an erotic reference, when he says that the lady is "look(ing)" at him while ""lov(ing)" and "moaning" which leads us to believe that he is getting some. When he talks about the "fragrant zone" it can also be interpreted as a euphemism for the zone, under her belt. 

Stanza 6- So the knight puts the lady on his horse, his "pacing steed" to take a ride... it could also mean his penis. In case you didn't catch that. He is so absorbed with his erotic encounter that he doesn't notice anything "all day long" There is also a suggestion of supernatural enchantment when he mentions that she sand, ""A faery's song"". 

Stanza 7- There is a religious aspect taken into course, here, as "Manna" is the food that Jewish scriptures say that the Israelites ate when they were wandering the desert after Moses freed them from slavery. It is meant to be food from heaven, which, in the poem would make the lady seem supernatural or divine, almost. Moreover, it could be that he was enslaved by the lady. It is an allusion, made with the Israelites when they were trying to find the promised land.

Stanza 8-  The fairy lady takes the knight to her "Elfin grot", her lady-cave basically, and there is contrast with the infatuation from the previous paragraph, whereby Keats introduces a hint of sadness, when the lady ""Wept, and sigh'd full sore"". It can either be left to our imagination about why she is said, or it could possibly be part of her seduction, to capture young knights. Again, there is repetition of the word, "wild" which emphasises her enchanting eyes as well as the knight's obsession with her, the repetition reflects the oral nature of the ballad  and the ability of the form to keep the reader engaged.

Stanza 9- The sadness in the previous stanza is contrasted with the gentleness of the words "lulled" and "dream'd" There is contrast conveyed with the use of hyphen introducing the plaintive line, ""-Ah! Woe betide" which is an archaic expression used to express extreme grief or suffering. The knight's use of this expression emphasises the medieval romance setting. 

Stanza 10-   There is again, repetition in using the word, "pale" which, again could be a religious allusion to the book of Revelations, where the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse is Death and he rides on a pale horse. Again, there is consonance, with the words 'all, belle, thrall' which associates those words as we read them, making us consider how the belle dame might be responsible for the paleness of all the knights she has had in thrall. 

Stanza 11-  This penultimate stanza presents us with a nightmarish imagery of, ""Starv;d lips"", ""Horrid"" and ""gaped wide". There is more talk of his dream here, when he wakes up, he is alone, and there is a gloomy sense of isolation as he uses the word ''cold'' to describe it.

Stanza 12- The final stanza reminds us that he is telling a story to the unnamed speaker, and it also reminds us of the poem's opening question, which is common with the folk tradition of the ballad form. There is an ambiguous ending as we are unsure if the knight will survive his experience or what decision he has come to, ""And this is why I sojourn here,/ Alone and palely loitering,"" 

Overall

The poem, is written in the form of a traditional folk ballad, and is broken into twelve quatrains. There is simple language, the story of one event, and the repetition of ideas and refrains. They all combine to serve the traditional purpose of the ballad which was to keep listeners engaged and entertained. Each of the quatrains has a simple ABCB pattern. 

The basic meter of the poem is iambic tetrameter, stressed/unstressed. However, on the fourth line of each quatrain, there are only three stressed syllables in the fourth line of each quatrain. It is consistently shorter- which is effective in terms of him *insert your own conclusion*. 

Also, remember that the poem is a dialogue between two people, the unnamed stranger and the knight. That's about all I have for this poem, its good for any obsessive, erotic love poetry comparisons, even infatuation to the point it makes the main character at the point of death. Memorise, memorise, memorise! 

Romantic Love- Love Sonnet 17

Love Sonnet 17- Pablo Neruda

This is quite a cute poem, which you can read here, about romantic love.

Summary

The general idea behind this poem, is that the narrator is in love. The speaker is addressing his lover, saying why he does not love her the same way someone would love beautiful flowers- essentially, he does not love her superficially, but he loves her for he she is on the inside. There is an interesting metaphor about this poem, about the aroma of ta flower, being like the love he carries inside him. His love for her is simple and humble, and there is an image in the way that he ends the poem, with him and his lover being intertwined as if they were one body, and one soul. 

Breakdown

Stanza 1- This poem is considered to be a direct address: where the speaker uses the second person point of view to speak directly to the addressee of the poem. He uses contrast by starting the poem with how he does not love this woman, but it is not apparent until later in the sonnet. "Carnation-arrow begot in flames" is a phrase he uses to describe the brightness of a carnation to a flaming arrow, which shows his passion for this woman. It initially may come off as an anticlimax because roses and carnations are common symbols of love, but this can be interpreted to say that it shows how unique his love is, that isn't like any old rose or carnation.

He then goes on to tell us that he loves the other the way people love "dark things", "in secret, behind shadow and soul."  It shows there is possibly a conflict between the shadow and soul, the conflict which goes behind keeping their love a secret from the rest of the world, making sure its something that stays between them. 

Stanza 2- He talks about the woman as if she were a barren plant, one that does not "flourish", but keeps its beauty hidden. There is a strong imagery in a flower being hidden in winter, when it is not in bloom and looks dead, but we know that during spring, "hidden" beauty will appear. He loves her, from the inside out. 

This is also when Neruda begins to appeal to the sense, this is a very sensory poem (read the overall analysis later, to get a better idea of this).

Stanza 3- This stanza is the one that always gets me. The speaker loves this woman, plain and simple. He does not specify why, he "simple" loves her. It shows the complexities of love, which is one that cannot be explained, it is a feeling which cannot be put into words.

He can only love when "I am not and you are not.". It is a very powerful poem, where two individuals become one, and can no longer be their individual selves, and become one instead. There is repetition as the speaker has now said "I love you" three times now. It is considered an anaphora, because it is always in the beginning, and is there for emphasis.  

There is a beautiful metaphor in the way the speaker describes the way he loves: they are so close that they switch body parts. Her hand in his and her eyes seeing his dreams. It is a love where there are no barriers. 

Overall 

The form of this poem is almost Petrarchan, where it is divided into two quatrains and then two tercets. The first eight lines are filled with metaphors in explaining his love, the next six are him giving up, because he cannot put his feelings into words. There is no rhyme scheme at all, however, which makes it unlike a normal Petrarchan sonnet. There are some rhyming words in the original, Spanish version of the poem, but it is not sustained throughout the piece. This may explain his love for her not being defined by a given set of rules? It would help to draw your own conclusions about this. 

There is a strong sense of intimacy in the poem, especially when he says "So close that your hand on my chest is mine/ So close that your eyes close on my dreams." The setting that comes across is quiet and isolated, and since the poem talks about secrets, it adds to the intimacy of them being on their own. I told you this would be a good poem, guys. It just sends butterflies everywhere. It's great. 

Power of Love- I carry your heart with me (I carry it on)

(I carry your heart with me (I carry it on))- EE Cummings

Probably biased with this one, because this is one of my favourite love poems of all time, luckily our English exam is about love, and it gave me a good excuse to analyse this poem in depth- it's only three stanzas, read it here

Summary

The poem opens with the speaker declaring, " I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)." Its a poem about the sense of unity he has with the person that he loves, whereby everything he does and feels is connected to her. It is, essentially the unconditional love expressed from a man to a woman and it is about how love shapes the people that we become. Read it, and you will notice a whole bunch of punctuation, metaphors, and motif, which really emphasises the way he feels about the one he loves. 

Breakdown

Stanza 1-  There are already major topics you can write about here, for example how Cummings uses a modern spin on the poem, using the  zany lowercase, syntactical, punctuation experiments. He uses figurative language because he cannot literally 'carry' her heart... because she'd be dead. Instead, he means he can feel her presence and love around her at all times, he carries it in him. He uses a lot of parenthetical clauses (duh), and we can gather that the parenthesis are within the adjacent word, like they are connected. It shows the unity with his lover as he is quite literally, next to it- so visually and contextually, we are under the impression that the two are connected.
Remember, parenthesis are supposed to add something to the text already provided without interrupting the flow of thought entirely, but here, they serve the purpose of visually connecting the speaker and the lover.
There is also parallelism in the third line, with " i go" and "you go". 
By the time the 5th line rolls around, we notice the enjambment between the lines, this is to help clarify what the lover is feeling, we thus recognise "fear" as an individual feeling, literally alone on the page for the reader to see.
Cummings also uses personification with the idea of the "sun singing". Obviously, the sun doesn't really sing, but if it did- it would sing about the speaker's lover. That is how awesome and cosmic their love is. All together now: aww.
Overall, these first few lines ( I know, we're not even halfway through yet), are all about her being with him in spirit and how a part of her will always remain inside him. The fear, pain and potential loss of losing someone you adore is unimaginable and deserves its own line to emphasis his apprehension.

Stanza 2-  The third stanza starts with anaphora of "here is the" which make the poem sound very lyrical and romantic. There is ambiguity when he talks of "deepest secret nobody knows" which leads us to question its mystery... maybe that was what he was getting at, how love is the greatest mystery of all. There is reference to their love as symbolic foundations of life. How you cannot have trees without roots or pretty flowers without buds. It is an extended metaphor, as he uses roots and buds to represent his love as foundations.
Obviously, this is all nature imagery and metaphors which keeps the whole flow of the poem very relaxed and natural (make your own conclusions up about why he uses nature). He also uses repetitionof the "of the" clause- Cummings is using syntax to not only keep things sounding lyrical but also to be as efficient and precise with his language as possible.
Overall, he makes references to real life ideas like the sky and the trees and once again to the stars. These lines are used to make the reader anticipate the release of his secret and draw them into his 'grand finale'.

Stanza 3- The speaker ends by (almost) perfectly referencing the title, in true Romantic poetry style, with the omission of "with me". After all the nature blah blah, we're back to where we started, with the speaker carrying the idea that love is within him at all times. We're also reminded of the unity he feels with his lover, with the parenthesis. This stanza only has one line. So Cummings is making it clear that line 15 is the entire point of the poem. It gets its own stanza because its so important and special.

Overall

There really isn't much else you can tackle with this poem, unless you want to go into whether it is free verse with occasional trochees, but that's pretty self explanatory, but if you don't understand those- Get Revising has some pretty good pointers on poetic diction, which is worth checking out. If you still feel like it isn't enough, some girl made a pretty cool essay on it (pft, what a saddo, who blogs about English revision.. am I right? Am I right? No... okay), which is worth a read.