Aspects of Tragedy: Keats' Overview - Isabella, Lamia, The Eve of St Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Oct 20, 2026

Teachers’ overview guiding close reading of Keats’ “Isabella,” “Lamia,” “The Eve of St Agnes,” and “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” through the genre of tragedy. The guide examines tragic heroes and victims, the protagonists’ loss of identity, and how suffering reshapes roles and status. It also considers resolution patterns, including death as aftermath, and the sense of inevitability created by narration and ending imagery.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages4

Reading Time6 min

AccessFree to download

Tragic heroes or tragic victims

Loss of identity

Resolution

Inevitability

Aspects of tragedy: Text overview-Keats:'Isabella', 'Lamia', 'The Eve of St Agnes' and'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' Read our overview which shows how teachers can consider ‘Isabella’, ‘Lamia’‘ The Eve of St Agnes’ and ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ in relation to the genre of tragedy. We haven’t covered every element of this genre. Instead we hope this guide will provide a springboard to help you plan, and to get you and your students thinking about the text in more detail. La Belle Dame Sans Merci -Sir Frank Dicksee (c.1901) "I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery's song." Tragic heroes or tragic victims When examining any text through the lens of the genre of tragedy, the first question to consider is who the protagonist or the tragic hero is. Here, ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’may be the most straightforward to read. If a tragic plot describes the disastrous downfall of the protagonist, it is easy to see that the knight-at-arms undergoes a disastrous downfall set up after his encounter with the faery child whom he places on his steed and who sings to him all day long. He ends the poem in a limbic condition, neither alive nor dead, neither up nordown, and capable only of relating his story to passers-by. For all this, Keats only allows us to guess at the knight’s life before his encounter with the lady, and hence at the height from which he has fallen. However, his status as a knight is key in establishing his high degree and by association, his nobility. In ‘Lamia’ and ‘Isabella’, just who the tragic heroes and victims are is very much open to debate. Keats names his poems after his female characters, and both suffer tragic fates. Lamia, who at first seems magical and perhaps divine, loses her power, and ultimately succumbs to mortality. Isabella loses the love that makes her “tread upon the air”, and “die[s] forlorn / Imploring for her basil to the last.” However, the suffering that these characters encounter or cause on their way to death might suggest a more central role for apparently secondary characters. Lycius’ death is the last to occur in ‘Lamia’. The image of the “pale kings and princes” inhabiting the knight’s dream is likely to linger in a reader’s memory for as long as the “palely loitering” knight himself; and Lorenzo’s death and return from the grave forms a more dramatic focal point of that poem than does Isabella’s death, which is almost made incidental. It may be possible to construct a reading in which the beloved women are femmes fatales, antagonists, luring otherwise happy and prestigious men to their tragic fates. Likewise, in ‘ The Eve of St Agnes’ these roles are not clear cut. Porphyro could be read as a tragic hero who rescues Madeline from the “barbarian hordes” at great personal risk all for a romantic ideal, eventually meeting an uncertain fate at the hands of the storm and time. Alternatively, he may be perceived as a predatory villain more akin to Hardy’s Alec D’Urberville. He voyeuristically spies on Madeline when she is most vulnerable and brings about a “painful change” that shatters her illusions and forces her,“beset with fears”, to rush out into the storm. Thus Porphyro’s role in the tragedy can provide grounds for interesting debate. Loss of identity A key aspect of tragedy is the protagonists’ loss of identity. Who can tell me who I am? asks Lear and Othello’s identity is lost when he falls down in a fit. As Lycius goes past his teacher, the rational philosopher Apollonius, while leading Lamia through the streets of Corinth, Lycius hides his face. Lamia refuses to invite Apollonius (her nemesis) to the wedding and Lycius is ashamed. Keats’intention seems quite clear: in loving Lamia with all her “brilliance feminine” and supernatural ability, Lycius is rejecting the guide who can take him into the rational and masculine world of Corinth. Isabella is also removed from the dominance of her family’s structures

FAQs

How does the guide explain resolution and ending in Keats’ tragedies?

It notes that many dramatic tragedies resolve through deaths and may be followed by hints of a future. In Keats, “Lamia” and “Isabella” suggest some restoration, while “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” and “The Eve of St Agnes” present bleak, death-centered conclusions that leave little room for hope.

Oct 20, 2026

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