Keats’ attitude towards women Essay

Q- Keats wrote that he struggled to shine his straits on women, by turns retiresome them as rootls and r uglinessing them as whores. Discuss Keatss berth to women in at to the lowest degree three poetrys in light of this opinion.Keats in wholeness case wrote in a letter to merchant ship Brawne You sacrifice ravishd me out by a Power I feminine genitalia non stomach and as yet I could resist till I saw you and until now since I have seen you I have endeavoured often to reason against the reasons of my Love- I mint do that no more(prenominal). The quote, from John Fords Tis clemency Shes a Whore, ostensibly encapsulates Keats attitude towards women. by dint of the variation of female characters presented in his work, from the evil seductress in La Belle razzing Sans Merci to chaste pure Madeline from The eve of St. Agnes, Keats cultivates the film of being concurrently enchanted and repelled by the contrary sex, enthral by their sensationalism yet wary of their plain strange nature.This repulsion is depicted quite distinctly in La Belle skirt Sans Merci or The Beautiful Woman Without Pity. Keats allusion to the mediaeval romance by French poet Alain Chartier categorical transports the reader into a fairy tommyrot setting. The poem adopts the traffic pattern of a ho aimhold ballad, yet merely mimics traditional make love ballads as Keats female protagonist is depicted as having a far darker purpose. The crinkle between the traditional ballad form and the cruel titular womanhood reachs an unfortunate t 1 that continues into the outgrowth stanza of the poem. The poem consists of two verbalizers, the first of which h disobliges the murkily loitering horse and asks O what place ail thee.The eeriness of the poem is reinforced when the un neckn speaker asks a second beat, O what can ail thee, dub at arms, the repeating of the question creating a ghostly refrain. The alliteration of the L sound in palely loitering crea tes a sense of listlessness that is unlessed by the bleak landscape where the sedge has witherd from the lake, and no birds sing. From this the reader can infer that the gentle is a sincere mad state, which is echoed, by his surroundings. Keatss employment of pathetic fallacy is furthered when the first speaker remarks that the harvests done consequently leaving the knight in a literal winter as strong as a figurative one.As knights atomic number 18 often held as paragons of resolution and power, Keats makes the reader conscious that something supernaturally sizeable must be at work. This preternatural being is full beautiful-a faerys child, a tempestuous seductress who enthrals the unfortunate knight. So besotted is he, that he thinks zero point of following her to her elfin grot where she lulled him asleep. On the one decease, the verb lulled can be seen as a treacherous attempt to stop the knights affections and allay his suspicions close La Belles otherworldly nature, on the other it can be viewed as a calming gesture, that has been misconstrued by the knight similar every other look of the ethe received woman.Alluding to medieval mythology, Keats paints La Belle as a succuba, a femme fatale able to depict the life from the chivalrous knight with dreams. We, as the reader be that when offered the descriptions and opinions of the knight-at-arms, and know nonhing of this lady drop a line for his presentation of her. As such, feminist critics could betoken that unkind depiction of her character stems from the inversion of patriarchal values depicted in the poem. The knight is not a deep in thought(p) victim of fancy, for it was he who first approached La Belle, and it was he who made her a decorate for her head, and bracelets too, and fragrant zone. These objects, seemingly tokens of their suit can be seen not only if to decorate but to bind, enslave and enclose.La Belle Dame Sans Merci deviates from popular literacy tropes by portrayal a lovelorn male in a state of decline and trouble after being rejected by the cruel female who is the object of his proclivitys. However, rather of creating a female character to be applauded, Keats turns La Belles rejection of the knight into a rejection of morality itself. La Belle is never amply described, a persistenthaired faceless beauty who enslaves the knight with her feminine wiles. As such, La Belle can be seen to represent all women, an caprice that is furthered when Keats speaks of pale kings and princess too, pale warriors, death-pale they were all. The repeating of the sickly procedural pale in conjunction with the paradigms of masculinity found in kings, princes, and warriors furthers the idea of female sexuality corrupting the values of men, thereof assuring their downfall.Keats creates a direct parallel to the malevolent succubus in La Belle Dame Sans Merci by dint of male protagonist Porphyro from his poem The eventide of Saint Agnes. St . Agnes Eve- Ah, bitter chill it was The schnozzle for all his feathers was a-cold the rabbit limped trembling through the frozen grass, and silent were the flock in woolly fold. Just resembling La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Keats through spend of natural imagery depicts a severe surrounding. However, in this case the frozen countryside is the number of a natural winter and not the spells of a cruel enchantress. This idea is further through the listing of animals the owl, hare and flock are vastly divers(prenominal) from the birdless wasteland.Keats conjures in the reader the vision of a harsh winter through employ of adjectives cold, frozen and chill. The dispirited nature of this bleak landscape is bemused by Musics well-situated tongue and silver snarling trumpets. The verb snarling conjures in the reader images of savage dogs or wolves and is a startling contrast to the muffled snowfall covered outside world. The harsh Ar sound in snarling creates a grumble effect and eff ectively conveys the ferocity and attack of the music being played. Keats use of wanted metals gold and silver simultaneously accent the value of the music, and livens the frozen world female protagonist Madeline lives in.Discussing the presentation of Madeline, critic Bateman states that shes no shtup Brawne, shes light-headed and subdued. Paraded in front on numerous gentry who hold no appeal to her, Madeline longs to escape from the public shopping center and anxiously awaits the hallowed hour of St. Agnes Eve. The adjective hallowed holds in spite of appearance it extremely phantasmal connotations that encapsulates the sacred nature of St. Agnes Night. The use of spectral imagery is prevalent throughout the poem, and is express quite exquisitely through Madeline.Madeline is a paragon of virtue, a virgin so pious that she seemed a splendid angelsave wings for heaven. border by the light of the wintry stagnate around Madeline is transformed into an ethereal being, on e with nomatch on earth. Far from evoking Diana, goddess of the moon around and chastity, the scintillating moonlight throws warm gules on Madelines breast thus draft attention to her tree trunk as she knelt, so pure a thing, free from lethal taint. The noun taint suggests contamination, a polluting crisscross that cannot be removed. After the touch of a man, Madeline will no longer be pure, and as such loose that which makes her heavenly.Through use of aged brute Angela, Keats creates a counter quality to female protagonist Angela. The noun creature brings to mind something other, an alien entity that lacks humanity. Far olden the age where she can enjoy the innocent and puerile rituals of St. Agnes eve, Angela is depicted as everything that Madeline is not. Old, feeble and feeble, she is perpetually shaking due to her palsied state and seems prone to fits of forgetfulness, reminding Porphyro that he she cannot believe her dizzy head. She lacks any effectiveness of chara cter and is easily manipulated by Porphyro, thus enabling him to carry out his seduction on Madeline. One the one hand, the constant listing of physical and mental deficiencies allows Keats to create a strong contrast to roaring Madeline, on the other hand, Keats can be seen as conforming to overused stereotypes- the pious untried virgin and the feeble elderly crone. As such, his female characters be summate a flat 2D portrayal, lacking any real depth of personality.Jack Stillinger states regardless of the consummation to which Keats identified with his hero, he introduced enough overtones of evil to make Porphyros actions wrong within the structure of the poem. On the one hand this statement can be held true, with Porphyros actions revealing him to be a cruel man and impious and on the other, Porphyros actions take on a romantic light, and any indiscretions made can be seen to be the actions of a lovesick fool. Mirroring La Belles presentation as a succubus, Keats once again d raws on medieval mythology. This time however, the male not the female entertains supernatural elements. As such, Porphyro becomes an incubus. comparable succubae, an incubus holds power over the opposite sex, and often carries out their seductions through dreams. contrasted La Belle however, Keats does not demonise Porphyro for his sexualnature and portrays his fantasies of possessing Madeline in a romantic light. Despite their similar situations, the difference in the presentation of La Belle and Porphyro truly illustrates Keats attitudes towards women. Keats wrote nearly empathetic identification, claiming if a sparrow come before my window, I take part in its existence and pick active the Gravel. Keats is able to identify with the sparrow, yet seems unable to create female characters who are not enticing femme fettles like Lamia and La Belle Dame Sans Merci, or vapid feeble characters like Madeline and Angela.Keats treatment and depiction of his written characters is highly s imilar to his treatment of tush Brawne, decision in her aspects of that which disgusted him in La Belle Dame Sans Merci and enchanted him in The Eve of St. Agnes. In a letter to her he wrote I cannot live without you, and not middling you but chaste you virtuous you. As such, that which drew Porphyro to Madeline also drew Keats to get off Brawne. Keats however, also echoes the obsessive yearning of the knight from La Belle Dame Sans Merci, writing to bottomland you are to me an object intensely desirable. This desire is shown most strongly in Ode To fag, one of the last poems Keats wrote after suffering his first lung haemorrhage.As Keats drifted closer towards death, his infatuation with base became something of an obsession with critic Richardson claiming that Keats had transfigured back tooth in his imagination, his passion creating in her the beauty which for him became the faithfulness. Keats ascribes Fanny with miraculous healing abilities, pleadingly asking her to le t my spirit affinity O ease my heart. Bloodletting was an old-fashioned practice said to relive the eubstance of ill humours and remedy maladies. Is this case however, it is not Keats blood that is causing his ailments but his dishonored soul. Only Fanny can cure his heartache, making him entirely dependant on her.Throughout the ode, Keats is intensely focused on Fannys virginity, pain amply aware that he will never be able to claim her sexually. Keats calls her his silver moon and asks that she stay unravished by anothers amorous turn off. Through mentioning moonlight, Keats invokes Artemis, classical Goddess of chastity entreating Fanny to remain pure. The long vowel soundsin amorous burn speak of consuming passion magic spell the verb burn contains connotations of fiery lust, thus furthering the idea of Keats fixation with Fannys sexuality. Whilst the twist silver is typically linked to pureness and the moon, it will also tarnishes over time thus loosing its lustre. Kea ts knows that Fanny, like the silver, will one day no longer be pure, yet he still asks that no other with a rude hand break the sacramental legal community. The use of the religious metaphor sacramental cake to rather crudely refer to the hymen, reduces Fanny to nothing more than a body for a man to sate himself in. Keats discounts her cost as a person in favour of highlighting her worth as a sexual object meant only for the pleasure of men.Keats employs the use of simplistic rime when stating must not a woman be, a feather on the sea. The juvenile rhyme scheme brings to mind that of a nursery rhyme, an idea that is corroborated by the equally infantile rhythm. Seemingly lordly of her emotions, and rather unable to comprehend that women are able to know their own minds, Keats wrote to Fanny you do not feel as I do- you do not know what it is to love. It is perhaps this view that nurtures Keats doubt and envy which prompts his rather hyperbolic declaration may my eyes close, Love On their last repose. The use of the rather clichd I would die without your love conjures in the reader images of powerful emotional manipulation. The reader has to question if Keats is really in love with Fanny like he claims, or if his obsessive infatuation has created an idealized image of what love is, and projected it on the object of his affections.Despite what other attribute or personality aspects they may possess, Keats paints women as seductresses, entrapping the hearts of unsuspecting men. In regards to the women he writes about, even pure chaste Madeline is presented as having ensnared poor Porphyro. Whilst some of this can be excused due to oppressive patriarchal paradigms that presented women as objects to be obtained, the vast mass of the unfair presentation stems from Keats own feelings and opinions. Keats is seemingly unable to view women as fully autonomous human beings, and treats even Fanny as a succubus that has enthralled him, yet even so he elevates he r into an ideal. The paradoxical nature of their relationship- characterised by twain love andloathing can be seen to be reflected in his attitudes towards women, leaving him simultaneously enchanted and repelled.Bibliographyhttp//feminism.eserver.org/theory/papers/lilith/labelle.htmlhttp//www.keatsian.co.uk/keats-poetry-belle.phphttp//www.mibba.com/Reviews/ harbour/4500/John-Keats-La-Belle-Dame-sans-Merci/http//www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetry_ccea/loveanddeath/labelledamesanmerci/revision/1/http//www.englweb.umd.edu/englfac/JRudy/Keats-letters.pdfhttp//www1.umassd.edu/corridors/bestessay259.htmlhttp//literarism.blogspot.co.nz/2011/03/eve-of-st-agnes-keats.htmlhttp//research.library.mun.ca/353/3/sensuous_embodiment.pdfRichardson, Joanna. Fanny Brawne A Biography. Norwich Jarrold and Sons, 1952. Print.