Isabella

Question 1

Synopsis

Answer 1

• a love story set in Florence between Isabella and Lorenzo (a young man working for her family)
• Isabella’s brothers are concerned only about family honour, so they murder Lorenzo and bury his body in the forest.
• Lorenzo appears to Isabella in a vision and tells her the story of what has happened to him.
• Isabella discovers the body, digs it up and cuts off the head, burying it in a pot which she plants with basil.
• Moistened by Isabella’s tears, the plant flourishes – but Isabella herself wastes away, consumed by grief.
• The brothers’ suspicions are aroused and they steal the pot. Their examination of its contents leads to the discovery of Lorenzo’s rotting head. Horrified, they flee from Florence
• Now deprived both of her lover and the pot of basil, Isabella goes mad and dies.

Question 2

when was Isabella written?

Answer 2

March 1818

Question 3

what is Isabella based on?

Answer 3

Giovanni Boccacios Decameron day 4 novel 5

Question 4

Keats on isabella (+ source)

Answer 4

I shall persist in not publishing The pot of Basil- it is too smokeableThere is too much inexperience of life, and simplicity of knowledge in it … Isabella is what I should call were I a reviewer ‘A weak-sided Poem’ with an amusing sober-sadness about it…’ letter dated September 1819 to Richard Woodhouse

Question 5

possible reasons that Keats believed that this poem was ‘smokeable’

Answer 5

he had recieved quite severe criticism for Edymion

Question 6

what the original intention behind writing this poem?

Answer 6

originally intended for a volume of verse trabnslations from Boccacio that Keats and Reynolds projected but later abbandoned

Question 7

form

Answer 7

Narrative Ballad using ottava rima rhyme scheme (8 line stanzas of iambic pentameter)

Question 8

explanation for the anti-capitalist undertones in Isabella

Answer 8

Robert Owen (an enlightened manufacture) wrote letters to the examiner. they were printed by Leigh Hunt and attacked those who put profit above` their concern for human happiness

Question 9

Hunt on capitalism

Answer 9

So completely has this country been spoiled by the appetite of money-getting… so badly that [one]… confunds industry with unceasing toil, leisure with idleness, and pleasure (which is a virtue) with vice