The View of Womanhood in La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Mariana and The Eve of Saint Agne

The View of Womanhood in La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Mariana and The Eve of Saint Agne

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These three poems show a wide range of visions of woman hood. "La

Belle Dame Sans Merci" shows a temptress, "Mariana" portrays woman as

awaiting man and "The Eve of Saint Agnes" depicts woman as nubile. So

here we are shown the two extremes of womankind, and then Madeline in

"The Eve of Saint Agnes" as the almost perfect medium.

La Belle Dame sans Merci leads men on, she is a temptress. She is

flirtatious, "her hair was long" and she was sitting sideways on a

horse and "sing a faery's song". The "wretched Wight" taken in by this

fame fatale "full beautiful" he describes her, he even describes her

eyes as "wild". This shows her seductive power although she has no

intention of requiting his love. The image of womanhood shown in this

poem is how women can have power over men. "She'd look at me as she

did love, / And made sweet moan." This shows how she is tempting the

man, teasing him, as if she loved him. This is where the 'fairytale

princess' image ends. Mariana is the opposite of la Belle Dame. She is

living in the shadow of a man. She is dependent on him for life it

seems. Her house is abandoned; the "clinking" latch "unlifted", here

Tennyson uses the absence of the sound for its presence. She lives in

an isolated world, a "lonely moated grange" crying day in day out for

the need of her love. He life is almost worthless in a way, wasted,

time is trivial, the "slow ticking clock" is use of onomatopoeia and

emphasises this. The midway of the two extremes is Madeline. However

in "The Eve of Saint Agnes" Madeline continues this perfect...

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...lso the progression through the

day in these choruses shows how routine, and how each day has its

characteristic emotions and aspects such as disappointment dictate her

life. As our part of "The Eve of Saint Agnes" is an extract it is

difficult to comment on the end of the poem. But at the end of the

extract we can see how the story will continue in a positive way.

Although Porphyro wasn't quite what Madeline had wanted she declares

her love for him.

From these three poems we are show three very different visions of

womanhood. All these poems show the power of love and how it can

affect emotions and actions. Be it in a positive or negative way.

Woman can have power over man or man can have power over woman in love

but as these poems demonstrate equilibrium between the two leaves the

best outcome for all involved.