La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad by John Keats (English Lit A2)

"She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept and sigh'd full sore; And there I shut her wild, wild eyes With kisses four"

"Elfin" means pertains to elves, and a "grot" is a grotto, or cave Once they're back at her fairy cave, she cries and sighs loudly- knight doesn't say why she's crying, and we never find out - it's left to our imagination- wouldn't expect her to cry, she acts impulsively, unknowably Knight kisses her weepy eyes four times- again, eyes described as "wild"- unpredictable, uncontrollable?

Style/Form/Structure

12 four-line stanzas, called quatrains ABCB rhyming pattern Basic meter of the poem is iambic tetrameter- four iambs per line Only three stressed syllables in the fourth line of each quatrain- fourth line is consistently shorter Ballad- old-fashioned, folksy style of poem that typically tells a story- use simple language that would appeal to less educated people, like farmers and laborers Ballads were primarily an oral form - people would memorize them and pass them on to their friends and family by memory, rather than from a book- poets like Keats tried to mimic this style in their written works

Summary

An unidentified speaker asks a knight what afflicts him. The knight is pale, haggard, and obviously dying. "And on thy cheeks a fading rose / Fast withereth too — ." The knight answers that he met a beautiful lady, "a faery's child" who had looked at him as if she loved him. When he set her on his horse, she led him to her cave. There she had sung him to sleep. In his sleep he had nightmarish dreams. Pale kings, princes, and warriors told him that he had been enslaved by a beautiful but cruel lady. When he awoke, the lady was gone and he was lying on a cold hillside

"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"

Change in point of view- knight answers the unnamed speaker's questions, so now the "I" is the knight, rather than the original speaker The knight says that he met a beautiful, fairy-like "lady" in the "meads," or fields "Full beautiful"- as if he's stunned by it She had long hair, was graceful, and had "wild" eyes- untamable woman, belonging to nature

"She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild and manna-dew; And sure in language strange she said, 'I love thee true'"

Fairy lady found him tasty roots, honey, and manna to eat ("of relish sweet") "Manna"- food that the Jewish scriptures say that the Israelites ate when they were wandering around the desert after Moses freed them from slavery in Egypt- supposed to be food from heaven, so this word makes the fairy lady seem supernatural, if not actually divine Alternatively, the association could be with the slavery from which the Israelites had just been freed- knight does become enslaved to the beautiful fairy lady- allusion becomes even more potent when it's associated with the "honey wild" that the fairy lady fed the knight, as the Israelites were trying to find the Promised Land, which would flow with "milk and honey" The fairy lady tells the knight that she loves him, but she says it "in language strange"- doesn't say what language it is, or how he's able to understand her, so maybe he's just hearing what he wants to hear, or maybe her magical influence has enabled him to understand her "language strange"

Themes (Women and Femininity)

Fairy lady in the poem enslaves the knight and then abandons him, leaving him to mope around the lake "haggard" and "pale"- according to the knight's dream, there was a whole series of "pale kings," "princes," and "warriors" whom the fairy lady ensnared before the knight came along Story is told from the point of view of the knight, and not of the lady, so it's possible that his perception is biased or inaccurate

"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"

First part of the stanza echoes the first line of the poem word-for-word- speaker has to repeat the question? Adjectives to describe the knight: "haggard," and "woe-begone," sick and depressed Squirrels have finished filling up their "granary," or storage of food for the winter, and the crops have already been harvested- assume that it's late autumn

Themes (Love)

Keats's version of a medieval romance "Love," in this poem, could be synonymous with "obsession"- not a pretty thing

"I saw their starved lips in the gloam With horrid warning gapèd wide And I awoke and found me here On the cold hill's side"

Knight continues to describe the pale warriors from his dream- in the "gloam," or dusk, all he can make out are their "lips" Mouths are "starv'd" and hungry-looking, and their mouths are all open as they cry out their warning to the knight Word "gloam" just means dusk or twilight- "gloam" sounds a lot like "gloom." Knight wakes up from the dream alone and cold on the side of a hill

"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!"

Knight describes the dream he had: he saw "kings," "princes," and "warriors, and they were all "death pale" Procession of "pale" men could be an allusion to the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse that gets described in the Book of Revelation in the Christian bible- fourth horseman is Death, and he rides on a pale horse. The pale warriors, princes, and kings all cry out in unison that "La belle dame sans merci" has the knight "in thrall," or in bondage- "the beautiful woman without mercy"

Themes (Versions of Reality)

Knight describes the dream he has towards the end of the poem, but the entire experience seems like a dream Where does the dream really begin? Could the knight and his story just be a dream that the speaker is having? Are they in the real world, or in fairyland? What is real and what is fantasy in this poem?

"And this is why I sojourn here Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing"

Knight has finished his story Tells the original, unnamed speaker, that this is why he's "sojourn[ing]" and "loitering" by himself, even though it's so dismal outside Knight repeats the unnamed speaker's words from the first stanza, so that the poem ends with almost exactly the same stanza with which it began- full circle

"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"

Knight made a flower wreath, or "garland," for the lady, along with flower "bracelets" "Garland"- like a crown- he crowns her, gives her all the power Adam crowns Eve in Milton's 'Paradise Lost' The "fragrant zone" is a belt made of flowers- possibly sexual reference "She looked at me as she did love"- is she just pretending? Knight and lady possibly having sex- "sweet moan"

Themes (The Supernatural)

Part folk ballad, part romance, and part fairy tale Lady's "wild" eyes suggest that maybe the knight isn't too far off when he calls her "a fairy's child" She appears out of nowhere, apparently lives in an "elfin grot" in the woods, and can ensnare any man she meets with her beauty, her "fairy's song," and her "language strange" Is she casting a spell over them, or are they just too easily obsessed with whatever beautiful woman is in their immediate line of sight?

Themes (Abandonment)

Poem about being abandoned by the one you love Knight gets abandoned and left on a "cold hill's side," even though he appears to be at death's door The beautiful fairy lady, we know from the title, is "sans merci," or merciless- abandons him without pity, and the knight's solitude becomes the framing image of the poem

"O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing"

Poem opens with a question- unnamed speaker asks a "knight at arms" what's "ail[ing]" him Something is clearly wrong with the knight- "loitering" by himself around the edge of a lake, and he's "pale" "Sedge," or marsh plants, have all died out from around the lake, and "no birds sing"- autumn or even early winter since all the birds have migrated, and the plants have "withered" Presence of the "knight at arms" reminds us of medieval fairy tales with knights and ladies in towers- probably the response Keats intended

"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"

Sexual connotations- the "pacing steed," the ride she takes on it Knight is so absorbed with his erotic encounter with this fairy lady that he doesn't notice anything else "all day long" She is active, he is passive- she takes control of the situation, and of him The lady leans "sidelong," or sideways off of the horse and sings "fairy songs" to the knight- Romance like a siren in Keats' 'On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again'

"I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever-dew. And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too"

Speaker asks about the "lily" on the knight's "brow," suggesting that the knight's face is pale like a lily Knight's forehead is sweaty with "anguish" and with "fever"- unwell Healthy color is rapidly "fading" from the knight's cheeks

"And there she lullèd me asleep, And there I dream'd - ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side"

The fairy lady "lulls" the knight to sleep like a baby in her cave, and he starts to dream Isabella and Lorenzo- like a mother and a child He interrupts himself with a dash - in line 34, and exclaims "Ah! woe betide!" because even the memory of the dream is horrible as he repeats it to the unnamed speaker "Woe betide!" is an archaic exclamation used to express extreme grief or suffering- old-fashioned even when Keats was writing- knight's use of this expression emphasizes the medieval romance setting The knight's dream in the fairy cave is the "latest," or last, dream he'll ever have

Context

Written towards the end of Keats' life, after his brother Tom died, but before he found out that he was dying of the same disease (tuberculosis) Keats wrote it in 1819, but it wasn't published until 1820 The version that was published includes a lot of changes recommended by his friend and fellow poet, Leigh Hunt Most critics prefer the original version- original version begins with the line, "O what can ail thee, knight at arms," while the edited 1820 version opens with, "Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight"