Required Resources
Read/review the following resources for this activity:

Initial Post Instructions
Choose one of the literary movements that you read about this week and at least one work from that movement. Movements, authors, and famous works are discussed in the lesson as well. You do not have to choose authors or works discussed in the lesson, but you may. For your initial post, address one of the following:

Option 1: Examine the movement and specific work in relation to historical and political influences of the movement. Include a one paragraph summary of the plot before moving on to the examination of the work in relation to the movement.

Option 2: Examine a specific artwork influenced by a literary work and how the artist captured the subject or story. Here are a few examples, but you are not restricted to this list:

Test book reading 

Numerous lyric poems have inspired paintings and pieces of music. John Waterhouse’s 1893 painting La Belle Dame Sans Merci (Figure 7-1) is an interpretation of the famous poem by John Keats. It is more than an illustration. Waterhouse imagines the knight yielding to an irresistible, childlike maiden. In keeping with the prescriptions of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Waterhouse chooses a medieval setting and a romantic narrative.

180

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

Ah, what can ail thee, knight at arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge is withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

181

Ah, what can ail thee, knight at arms,

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever dew;

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads

Full beautiful, a fairy’s child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

A fairy’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna dew;

And sure in language strange she said,

I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she gazed and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes—

With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,

And there I dreamed, ah woe betide,

The latest dream I ever dreamed

On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—“La belle Dame sans merci

Hath thee in thrall!”

I saw their starved lips in the gloam

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke, and found me here

On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.