La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Notes
Narrative story in form of a ballad… Knight and Damsel in distress kind of idea.
Keats dug da French revolution– important to remember that.
O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Alone: Vulnerable, isolated
Palely: Keats suffered from TB– ironic. Purity or just dull?
Question asked, as though the reader is an observer of the situation
The stanza is dark and eerie and powerful. Gives a feeling of unease– suggests foreboding and evil to come.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
Autumn, things die, slow, shut down
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
Idealistic Romantic description
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
‘she looked at me as she did love’- she doesn’t say it– ambiguous– holding back, silent.
The bracelets and garland are trusty stuff that he made.
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.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said -
"I love thee true."
The gifts she has for him are suspicious– sweet and sickly. Could be drugs (wild and dangerous)- echoes their relationship
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh'd fill sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
When she cries, it could make us feel sorry for her because she’s guilty about what she’s doing OR (and more likely) it could be emotional blackmail.
She’s got him right where she wants him
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream'd - Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill's side.
Latest dream: been done before– could happen again
The last line of each stanza is shorter– unexpected; don’t know what’s going to happen next.
It also disrupts the rhythm with the short line– echoes a kind of sinister feeling.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - "La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!"
In this stanza, we learn there are other victims
I saw their starved lips in the gloom,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
This last stanza is an echo of the first stanza and it answers the question asked at the start.
Pale + death semantic field
The title of the poem means ‘beautiful lady without merci’
-She represents women in general in Keats’ point of view.
-Also represents what he finds illusive about love
However, there are questions left unanswered in this poem– we don’t know what happens next– to him or her.
Also, is the knight in this poem dead or alive when he’s writing it?
The knight is scared of rejection and false promises, and the woman is in control.
