‘Isabella’ quotes

• "fair isabel, poor simple isabel"


  -immediately portrays her as upper class and implies tragedy
• "lorenzo a young palmer"

  -immediately portrays him as lower class, contrasting him to isabella
• "they could not in the same mansion dwell"


  -they are separated and class divide is aparant
• "with every morn their love grew tenderer"


  -establishes a sad, despairing mood as thewy cannot be together
• "father than the falcon spies"


  -implies that isabella is prey, even with lorenzo she is inferior

  -could reflect what the brothers might feel about lorenzo
• "this sad plight made their cheeks paler by the break of june"


  -the separation of the two lovers in draining them of their happiness

  -reflects imagery in 'la belle
• "sweet isabella's untouched cheek"


  -foreshadows that they never get to share a proper moment together and their futures are also taken from them
• "as a young mother's"


  -comparing isabella to young mother foreshadows how she is never able to become one

  -it also foreshadows her caring role that she takes on for the pot of basil
• "her infants pain"


  -lorenzo is portrayed as a child which could reflect how he died with and because of his innocence and niavity
• " i cannot live another night, and not my passion shrive"


  -too many feelings to keep in, their love overwhelms them

  -overshadowed by a semantic field of death
• "like a lusty flower, in June's caress"


  this moment may be sweet now but in the future it will turn cold and bitter and die
• "sang of delicious love and honeyed dart"


  -prosperity and happiness heightens the tragedy
• "too many doleful stories we do see"

  -foreshadows the ending

  -there has been warning of stories like this befor e not working out so we know that this will fall into a tragic ending and not to hope for happiness
• "there is richest juice in poison flowers"


  -even though the moments they do share are so sweet and rich, they are short lasting and the consequences will catch up with them.

  -playing with fire, setting yourself up for failure and pain
• "ancestral merchandise"


  -the brothers havent earnt their wealth
• "blood from stinging whip"

  - the brothers are selfish and do not care for the consequences of their actions on others

  -this helps us see that the brothers cold nature is part of what causes the death or Lorenzo, they simply do not care for what happens to him, they just want to maintain their status

  -demonstrates from early on that they barely value the lives of those socially below them, except for work and exploitation
• "they turned an easy wheel"


  -reference to the wheel of fortune -medieval tragedy

  -life isnt fair, some people get easy lives even if they dont deserve it
• "these bretheren"


  -no name for the brothers

  -dehumanizes them, allowing us to feel no sympathy at all for them
• "and how she loved him too"

  -the brothers were aware that lorenzo made isabella happy yet they still decided to go through with the murder
• "twas their plan to coax her by degrees to some high noble and his olive-trees."


  -isabella has no free will, is n ot allowed control over her own happiness

  -MARXISM they want somebody with a high class that will benefit them in terms of money and status

  -CONTEXT this could be keats adding elements of his own tragic life to his poetry as Fanny's family didnt think he was good enough for her
• "make the youngster for his crime atone"


  -ironic as they commit the legal crime

  -they see crossing class barriers and being happily in love as a larger crime than murder
• "they resolved in some forest dim to kill lorenzo and there bury him,"


  -they make this decision very quickly, emphasising their disregard for his life
• "with belt and spur and huntsman's dress"


  - ironic as he is the one being hunted

  -unsuspecting and niave
• "i'll soon be back"

  -dramatic irony

  -unsuspecting ang niave- hieghtens the tragedy
• "so the two brothers and their murdered man"


  -lorenzo is already a deadman

  - they own his life, they have it in their hands
• "there was lorenzo slain and buried in, there his great love did cease


  -very short and undetailed

  -reflects how they just see it as another hunting kill, they dont value his life as a human

  -keats adds a reminder of just how much lorenzo loves isabella, heightening the tragedy
• "each richer by his being a murderer"


  -happier now their aspirations for isabella are underway

  -they show no guilt
• "she weeps alone for pleasures not to be"


  -she loses hope and purpose to her life without him

  -she is alone, he was the only person who she truely loved, even her brothers dont comfort her
• "so sweet isabel by gradual decay from beauty fell"


  -enjambment- her life is falling apart

  -being away from lorenzo drains her
• "and every night in their dreams they groaned aloud to see their sister in her snowy shroad"


  -they are scared that the consequences of their actions will catch up with them

  -isabella's life has turned from warm imagery to cold imagery
• "isabella on its music hung"


  she is clinging on to the small parts of her love that she still has
• "Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright with love"


  -even death cant hold back their love

  -shows that despite their class their love was still so strong yet it was taken away from them

  -intensifies the trageduy
• A brother's bloody knife!

  Anagnorisis for Isabella, violent
• What feverous hectic flame burns in thee, child?


  -she is turning deranged and losing her sanity without lorenzo
• "to see skull, coffined bones and funeral stones--- this is holiday to what was felt when isabella by lorenzo knelt"


  -keats puts it into perspective for the reader that normally people get to grieve their loved ones properly, have a ceremony and see them respected and peaceful in a coffin however isabella had to suffer further by seeing her lover carelessly buried in the dirt
• "wherefore all this wormy cicumstances"


  keats uses gruesome imagery to stimulate emotions reflecting isabellas
• "they took it home"

  -lorenzo has lost his humanity

  -perhgaps this implies that isabella doesnt see this head as lorenzo but she is loosing her mind and it is causing her to do this
• "and she forgot the ..." x4

  -this repetition emphasises how isabella lost herself in the pot and that she cant think of anything else

  -this tragedy ha completely destroyed her
• "for simple isabel is soon to be among the dead. she withers like a palm"


  -this permanent separation from lorenzo is causing her to wither away into death
• "they contrived to steal the basil pot"


  -the brother commit another crime to her, separating her again from her love, they then also leave her, meaning she is left completely on her own with nobody to bring her back from madness