La Belle Dame sans Merci

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...

I would argue that the central idea of John Keat's poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is the difference between appearance and reality and the consequences of mixing them up. The knight meets a fair...

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...

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...

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 this poem, perhaps one of the most well-known of Keats' shorter works, we see a story of a knight who has fallen in love with a mysterious woman in the wilderness. The concept of "loitering" in...

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...

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...

The poem "La Belle Sans Merci" can be considered a romantic poem because of the fleeting love between the fairy lady and the knight. The poem ends tragically, with the knight losing the love of the...

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...

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...

The action at the beginning and the end of the poem seems to take place in autumn or early winter. We know this because of a number of features of the natural world to which the speaker refers....

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...

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,...

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...

"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...

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,...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

I am not entirely sure whether I understand your question correctly. By asking about the "knights of unfortunate conditions," are you refering to the other knights that the knight who tells us...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

This is a rather old-fashioned way of asking someone what's wrong with them. That such a question is being asked of the knight indicates clearly that he's visibly upset as he stands there all alone...

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...

It might be more helpful to break down the poem into groups of stanzas, as often the emotion in one is carried on into the next few. Therefore, if we look at the first three, we could say that the...

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...

John Keats uses the image of the knight and the spectral maiden to denote courtly love and unrequited love. He also uses the absence of the birds' song and the withering of nature to denote decay...

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...

This question has already been asked and answered here on eNotes. Here is a link for you: http://www.enotes.com/la-belle-dame-sans-meri/q-and-a/summary-la-belle-dame-sans-merci-79649

Keats evokes several landscapes within the poem: the desolate setting of the opening ('the sedge is withered from the lake'), where the unnamed speaker of the poem first addresses the knight; the...

The surface meaning of this poem is about this knight who is entranced and lured by this woman in the wilderness, a faery queen. The knight succumbs to her and is enamored with her, as they both...

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,...

In the first 12 lines we learn it is late fall, the grasses have all "wither'd" and the birds are long gone for the winter, and the harvest is now over. The speaker comes upon a sad...

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...

I don't think it's possible to choose one "correct" theme to illuminate this poem, since it is a very complex work (despite being relatively short and appearing to be fairly simple in language and...