La Belle Dame sans Merci (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: John Keats
- First Published: 1820
- Type of Work: Ballad
- Genres: Poetry, Ballad
- Subjects: Love or romance, Women, Kings, queens, or royalty, Folklore, Knights or knighthood, Chivalry, Autumn
The Poem
“La Belle Dame sans Merci” is a remarkably evocative poem attaining subtle effects of mood and music in the short space of forty-eight lines. The twelve stanzas consist of three tetrameter lines followed by a concluding line of only two stresses. The title is taken from a medieval French poem by Alain Chartier in which the speaker is mourning his dead mistress. Other than the title, John Keats’s poem has nothing in common with Chartier’s.
The poem opens with an unnamed speaker asking a knight at arms what ails him, since he is all alone, pale, and...
[The entire page is 1434 words long]
See Also:
John Keats (Cyclopedia of World Authors)John Keats (Poetry)John Keats (Dictionary of World Biography)
See Also:
- - La Belle Dame sans Merci summary and study guide in the eNotes.
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