La Belle Dame sans Merci

The knight's encounter with the lady in "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is such an utterly blissful experience that it makes it all the more difficult for him to get over his subsequent heartbreak. On...

There is very little description of the lady in "La Belle Dame sans Merci." Keats's depiction of her is deliberately impressionistic, allowing the reader to imagine the details of her face and...

In Keats's poem, the dream may have multiple meanings, especially in terms of the knight's fate. First, there are class implications. The other men he dreams of share similar elevated positions in...

These details serve to emphasize the supernatural elements of the poem. More than that, they are details that put the knight in a particular relationship with the fairy. There is a tradition that...

The landscape in which the knight-at-arms is depicted at the beginning and, for that matter, the end of "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is lifeless and sterile. The sedge has withered from the lake,...

The lady is the bane of any man who crosses her path: the apotheosis of the "femme fatale" who leads men to their ruin. But then, this is no ordinary woman; she is a "faery's child," an indication...

Although he was an English poet, John Keats chose a French title for his poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," written in 1819. This is because the poem is an allusion to much earlier French works. One...

Keats wrote the poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" about a knight that has been taken in by the love of a "capricious" fairy. His love is full and true, but the fairy is not interested in this and...

It is clear that from the beginning enchantment or some form of magic is at the heart of the attraction that the strange lady is able to provoke in the Knight who is left the worse for ever meeting...

The main device used throughout the poem is repetition, which is characteristic of the traditional form the poem takes: the ballad. Ballads pertain to the oral tradition and are designed to be told...

There are various clues in the poem which suggest what season of the year it is when the events of the poem take place. For example, early in the poem, it is mentioned that the "sedge"—a sort of...

The key word in the question is "lovely." The knight has been utterly bewitched by the fairy's enchanting beauty, so much so that he seems on the very edge of death. The fairy's magical kisses...

In answering this question, we need look no further than the first line. The speaker asks the knight "What can ail thee?", which is an old-fashioned way of asking what's wrong with him. Such a...

The lady's tears are all part of the act. This beguiling fairy queen lures unsuspecting men into her elfin grotto—where she seduces and abandons them. And one of the reasons why she's so successful...

In order to define "La Belle Dame sans Merci" as a ballad, we must first explore what a ballad is. There are many definitions out there (some of them getting quite specific), but a good, general...

The descriptions of the pale figures in Stanza 10 of this poem are images that help explain what the knight saw when the lady of the title brought him to her dwelling. The poem hints that she is of...

Both poems are considered "Romantic" and are similar in several ways. Both have a medieval setting and concern unrequited love. Both create a mysterious and almost otherworldly atmosphere,...

John Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is often considered a prototypical poem of the Romantic movement. Its features both conform to and set a pattern for a certain type of Romantic lyric poem In...

In his dream, the knight sees "pale [dead] warriors" who tell him that the belle dame, or beautiful woman, has him in her "thrall." In other words, he is in her power. Before the dream, he had met...

It is clear that the mysterious lady gave every appearance of loving the knight through her body langauge and what she said, if you can consider the "sweet moan" to be language. However, as #2...

These are two very interesting opposites to consider when thinking about this enchanting poem. I suppose one way of thinking about what happens in this poem is that it could be viewed as an...

The pale, weakened knight tells the tale of his meeting a beautiful lady in a meadow. He spent the whole day with her, making her jewelry of flowers, and she told him that she loved him. While they...

A "ballad" is defined as a "relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung" or recited. Is "La Belle Dame sans Merci" a ballad? Literary critics note that Keats imitates the form of a folk...

At the very beginning of the poem the speaker asks the knight what ails him. In other words, he wants to know what the matter is. This would indicate that there's something about the knight's...

Clearly, in answering this question, you need to refer to the presentation of the knight in this poem, and in particular how he feels after being left alone by the mysterious lady that gave him...

In "La Belle Dame sans Merci," the knight finds that his presumed dominance is exploited by a beautiful lady who leaves him helplessly captivated by her departure. When the knight first encounters...

There are many points of comparison and contrast between "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by John Keats and "The Lady of Shallot" (one of my favorites) by Alfred Tennyson. These points are in structure,...

Keats’s poem is similar to "Lord Randall" in terms of overall poetic style. The poem consciously imitates the form of a folk ballad, of which "Lord Randall" is a well-known example. Ballads were...

"La Belle Dame sans Merci" clearly exemplifies elements of Romanticism and the English tradition of chivalry: ROMANTICISM There is a dreamlike, visionary quality to the poem The sympathy of nature...

According to the speaker, everything looks more dreary now that it is autumn and the harvest is complete. The speaker describes the knight as pale and tired, almost to the point of being...

There are two opinions on the construction of La Belle Dame sans Merci by John Keats. The first is that there is an unidentified observer speaking to a knight lying on a hillside; but this view...

The narrator happens upon a knight in a field, all alone and weak; he is, apparently, dying as "on [his] cheeks a fading rose / Fast withereth." The knight explains that he met a beautiful lady,...

The first three stanzas consist of an extended request to know what's happened to the knight, why he's all alone and "palely loitering" by the withered lake. Clearly there's something up with him,...

There have been many interpretations of this poem. Mine is that the beautiful and cruel woman of the ballad is a personification of nature. It is easy to fall in love with nature, but in the end...

The speaker of the poem meets the knight-at-arms standing by a lake. It's a pretty depressing scene. The sedge—a grass-like plant that grows near water—has withered, and no birds sing. The poor old...

In the 1819 ballad "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (the beautiful lady without mercy), John Keats does not say explicitly what season it is set. However, there are several lines that provide clear...

Each of the poems presents a man who is obsessed with a woman. In John Keats’s poem, the primary character, a forlorn knight, describes himself as helpless in the face of the woman’s charms: she...

The traditional ballad is a songlike poem that tells a story dealing with romance or adventure. The narrative is usually told in simple language with dramatic action, dialog, and repetition; often...

The speaker of the first three stanzas sees that the knight upon whom he happens is "haggard" and well past his prime, with "lily on [his] brow." Lilies are associated with death. The knight is, in...

Language that suggests the knight's dominance can be found in the sixth stanza, where he tells the speaker that he set the lady upon his pacing steed. The lady didn't mount the knight's horse by...

"La Belle Dame sans Merci" by John Keats exemplifies many of the typical features of Romantic poetry. First, it is written in the form of a traditional ballad, a literary genre that was frequently...

Similarities 1. Both poems are ballads. They contain a "sing-song" quality to them and they tell a story. 2. Because of the sing-song quality, both are pleasing to the ear 3. Both are stories of...

Being a ballad, the style is a narrative, third person, story telling, lyrical method of retelling. It begins with an outsider's point of view about the knight and his experiences with the woman,...

John Keats's "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is a Romantic ballad that tells of the misfortune of a knight who falls in love with a maiden who is without mercy--"sans merci." Much like some ancient...

In “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” one of the ideas that Keats presents is that beauty gives power. The speaker encounters a woman, “a faery’s child,” and immediately falls in love with her. As he...

You might want to examine how nature is used to reflect the emotional and psychological desolation of the knight as he is left "Alone and palely loitering." Note the way that the action of the poem...