Isabella

• ”They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep But to each other dream, and nightly weep“ forbidden love - sadness comes from the fact that they cannot be together
• “With every morn their love grew tenderer“ love grew more with every time their love was forbidden
• “If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears” foreshadowing to when she lets her tears fall in the basil pot in order for it to grow
• “When passion is both meek and wild!” - Keats idea of love. Timid because he is scared she won’t feel the same. doesn’t make it any less passionate - makes them want it more
• “She saw it waxing very pale and dead“ - foreshadowing lorenzo being dead. love can have a physical impact

  they are the source of life to each other.

  Keats context - cant live without his love caused Keats to be unwell because he couldn’t be w her
• Isabella is the tragic hero as she goes through tragic suffering. She loses the love that makes her "tread upon the air" and "die(s) forlon imploring for her basil to last".
• Her decline and eventual reduction of identity defines her downfall as her love has vanished without warning resulting in her changing from her innocent and happy being to one that is on the edge of death. "So sweet Isabel By gradual decay from beauty fell" "Sweet Spirit, thou hast schooled my infancy" her innocence is physically stripped from her when she looses Lorenzo, brought out of her child-like innocence which she begins the poem with (being overwhelmingly in love with Lorenzo)
• Brothers are the tragic villains of the poem as they kill Lorenzo due to them not agreeing with the relationship between Isabella and Lorenzo because of the class divide (contextual factor) "Some noble high status". "When 'twas their plan to coax her by degrees to some high noble and his olive-trees" - the brothers seem to have some sort of ownership over Isabella
• When describing the brothers Keats uses metaphorical language "And they went all naked to the hungry sharks" painting them as violent predators. "Red lined accounts", Keats highlights to the reader that they gain their wealth and their luxury from victimising others, their greed is dangerous. Their villainy is shown especially from "slaughtering" Lorenzo for their own gain > brings Isabell and Lorenzo back to reality as their love was too unrealistic
• "And they had found Lorenzo's earthly - The flint was there, the berries at his head" - this is quite religious imagery when referring to Lorenzo's death, as it gives the image of Jesus having the thorns around his head when he is sacrificed. Impactful to the audience at the time
• "They could not in the self-same mansion dwell" Keats immediately presents Isabella's status through her surroundings
• Isabella is in a narrative structure which gives insight to the characters, setting and plot.

  Eight line stanzas, A rhyme scheme of abababcc, Iambic lines, usually pentameter but Keats deviates from this by using mixed feet on occasions. The alternative rhyming of the first six lines builds towards a concluding rhyming couplet which acts as a 'punch line', thereby suggesting a resolution to the stanza. However, Keats, on occasion, uses the form to generate a sense of anti-climax by withholding conclusions, leaving the stanzas open
• At the beginning we see the pure love that is shared between Lorenzo and Isabella, which then has a sharp decline when the brothers get involved, them being the true reaction of society to a relationship including two people from very different statuses. The beginning has foreshadowing of Lorenzo’s death and the loss that Isabella is about to endure, “She saw it waxing very pale and dead” “I drink with her tears”(foreshadowing the basil pot being fed with Isabella’s tears) “poison-flowers”. This warns us for the tragedy that we are about to witness between these two lovers.
• "poison-flowers" - the use of naturalistic imagery gives this sense of happiness and growth but in this quote it is contrasted by the foreshadowing at the end of the poem. the poison represents that their will be a loss of life and their love for each other will be physically unable to grow

  "Go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom, And it shall comfort me within the tomb" - her tears will comfort him, closest he will ever be with her as their is a restriction to them seeing each other as it isnt socially accepted
• "For Isabel, sweet Isabel will die - Will die a death too lone and incomplete, Now they have ta'en away her basil sweet" - example of narrative structure.