La Belle Dame sans Merci

by John Keats

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Themes and Romantic Elements in "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by Keats

Summary:

John Keats' poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" explores themes of illusion versus reality and the destructive nature of unattainable love. The knight in the poem is captivated by a beautiful, otherworldly woman, only to be left desolate and entrapped by her charms. This narrative reflects Romantic elements like the supernatural and emotional intensity, while also incorporating chivalric ideals. The poem suggests that beauty can deceive and entrap, aligning with Keats' broader reflections on beauty's transient nature.

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What is the central idea of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"?

One of the main ideas in "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is that a love constructed between those from different worlds is sometimes doomed from the start.

In this poem, the speaker meets a knight who has become infatuated with a lady who is a "faery's child." While the knight represents a world of order, discipline, and service, the fairy lady represents a world of mysticism, free-spirited passions, and endless possibilities. While the knight is immediately smitten with the fairy lady's beauty, he also recalls that "her eyes were wild," reminding us of her untamable spirit. It is the lady who professes her love for the knight:

And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.

The knight makes no such profession; although it can be inferred that he engages in sexual activities with the fairy lady, most notably in the lines about the "pacing steed,"...

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the knight never returns her sentiments of love. The knight's sense of honor is thus called into question. Perhaps it is this lack of true emotional connection that causes the fairy lady to weep and sigh once she returns to her "Elfin grot."

In this poem, the wild and mystical world of a fairy meets the disciplined and structured world of the knight. Although he certainly admires her beauty, her proclamations of love are unanswered. The two lovers are from different worlds and thus have differing goals for this intimate encounter. Their lack of ability to truly connect demonstrates the difficulty in attempting to construct a relationship between those from two different backgrounds.

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It is important to note that poems are not essays. They do not require a single controlling idea or any ideas per se. While they can be grounded in abstraction, most poems are organized around narratives, perceptions or emotions rather than ideas.

"La Belle Dame sans Merci" is a narrative poem telling the story of a traveler encountering a pale, sickly, melancholy knight. When the traveler asks what the knight is doing wandering around in the remote countryside, the knight tells a story of having been seduced by a female fairy or elf. After a ride and extended foreplay, they have a (discretely worded) sexual encounter and while the knight is asleep, the woman leaves. Since then the knight has wandered mournfully around the area of their meeting.

One can read the poem romantically, seeing the knight as a victim, seduced by the beauty of the fairy. The central idea can then be seen as focusing on the longing for beauty being fatal and destructive but still leading to moments of ineffable joy for which the romantic knight or artist sacrifices everything.

One could also look at the poem more realistically. First, the knight blaming the woman for his unhappiness and having him "in her thrall" can be seen as silly. He willingly slept with her. She left. Rather than indulging in melodramatic moping, one could argue that he should get back to his knightly duties. Thus we could also argue that another central idea is that romantic delusions interfere with getting on with one's daily life and duties.

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"The Belle Dame sans Merci" means, in French, the beautiful lady without mercy (pity). The central idea of the poem is that beauty and our own illusions about it can deceive us.

The knight in the poem comes across a woman, saying she was "full beautiful--a faery's child." He thinks she loves him, but this is his subjective interpretation of events. She looks at him as if "she did love / and made sweet moan." She also, "in language strange" says she loved him, or so the knight wants to believe.

In fact, beguiled by her beauty, the garlands she makes for him and the honey and manna she gives him, the knight misinterprets the beautiful woman's intentions. She is not in love with him, but has lured him into her trap, so that she can hold him in "thrall" or captivity, like the other ghostly knights he sees.

Keats says here that beauty is a trap that can hold us in thrall.

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What elements of romanticism and chivalry are reflected in "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"?

"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 with the individual

There is a magical touch to the feelings of desolation of the knight who changes are reflected by Nature:

Alone and palely loitering,...
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth, too.

The knight describes his love as a "faery" who takes him to her "elfin grot."

  • There is much lyricism to the poem

The use of alliteration and assonance and internal balance are prevalent in the lines:

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And homey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said--
'I love thee true.'
  • The individual's experience, his inner feelings and emotions are emphasized
  • The visionary and fantastic are described

With much visual imagery, Keats elucidates the emotional desolation of the knight who is helpless in his faithfulness to his love since the more one embraces feelings of love and beauty, the more desolate and painful mundane life becomes.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
She took me to her elfin grot...(fantastic element)
And there I dreamed--Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamed...(visionary)
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.

 CHIVALRY

  • The knight's allegiance to his love

The knight who has sworn his devotion, remains in his desolation on the cold hillside where his beauty has abandoned him.  He is held "in thrall":

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering
Though the sedge has withered from the laek,
And no birds sing.
  • The knight's idealizing of his love

The knight perceives his lady--or the concept of beauty as another interpretation--as a supernatural creature:

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.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone,...
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
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What is the main idea of "La Belle Dame sans Merci" by Keats?

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 she is cruel because she claims you in death, as she does all the "death pale" kings, princes and warriors.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
   Pale warriors, death pale were they all,
They cried -- "Le Belle Dame sans Merci
   Hath thee in thrall!"

We are all destined to become part of nature again--to be slowly absorbed into the soil, the roots, the trunks, branches, leaves and blossoms of the trees we loved while we were alive. John Keats died at an extremely early age. He was only twenty-five. Much of his poetry is haunted by his feelings about death, and "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is a prime example. Those feelings are not of fear but of a characteristic mood. He always sees nature through a veil of melancholy. He has seen his brother die of tuberculosis and knows what to expect for himself. He is tormented by the thought that he has to leave the world in which he finds so much that is beautiful for him to love, not excluding Fanny Brawne, the beautiful girl he loved. 

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What is the theme of "La Belle Dame sans Merci"?

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 structure). The poem has been the subject of a great deal of critical writing, and so it can be expected that its possible themes have generated a fair amount of discussion.

Some possible themes for exploring and analyzing this poem include love and romance, the fear of death, illness (Keats was seeing the beginnings of the tuberculosis that would kill him at a young age when he wrote his poem), the perils and/or mysteries of the natural world, and chivalry. But I think the most interesting theme is that of the suggestion of faery lore that informs this poem. The British Isles have a widespread belief in faeries and other creatures which informs much of the literature and art of this region, from Shakespeare's well-loved play A Midsummer Night's Dream to Christina Rosetti's poem "The Goblin Market" to Yeats' poem about Wandering Angus. Painters such as Millais, Dicksee, and Hughes also painted many works featuring faeries; and Waterhouse painted a very famous painting inspired by this very poem. This poem by John Keats, one of England's foremost Romantic poets, draws upon that rich tradition with the imagery of a knight who has been seduced by a faery woman, who becomes obsessed with love for her.

The knight describes the woman he meets as a "faery's child" and the mysterious place where she lives is an "Elfin grot." When he goes to her dwelling he sees men like himself, kings and warriors, all "death-pale" and warning him that the faery woman holds him "in thrall." They're trying to warn him that he will meet a similar fate if he does not escape. Despite the suggestion that the knight may be eating and drinking faery food and drink ("She found me roots of relish sweet, / And honey wild, and manna-dew"), he manages to escape the faery realm. Often the folklore says that eating food or drink in this realm will imprison someone there or cause them to lose track of time. It is possible some time has passed since he first met her, since he is "alone and palely loitering" and the description of the landscape suggests time passing as well ("The sedge is withered from the lake, / And no birds sing"), perhaps into a more dormant season.

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What ideas of Romanticism are represented in "La Belle Dame sans Merci"?

"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 used by Romantic poets. The poem uses a form of ballad meter, being written in quatrains rhymed ABCB, with the first three lines of each quatrain usually in iambic tetrameter and the fourth line in iambic dimeter.

The setting of the poem is medieval, echoing the "gothic" or medieval revival of the Romantic period. While Augustan authors had disparaged medieval culture as rude and barbaric, the Romantics found inspiration in the very sense of irregularity and mystery that the rational Augustans disliked. Instead, the Romantics saw medieval folklore and romance as a necessary counterweight to what they felt was the soullessness and inhumanity of an urban life transformed by the Industrial Revolution.

The pastoral setting is also typical of Romantic poetry, as is the theme of unrequited love. 

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How does "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" reflect or differ from Keats' beliefs about beauty?

To simplify a complex question and using "A Thing of Beauty" (from Endymion) as a starting point, Keats expresses the idea that beauty is that in life which brushes "away the pall / From our dark spirits" (a pall is a shroud). Our spirits are darkened ("our dark spirits"), according to the poem, by despondence, lack of nobility in people's human natures, gloominess, unhealthfulness, and general "o'er-darkn'd ways."

Keats writes that the sources of this pall-removing beauty are such things as "the sun, the moon," trees, a "shady boon" (which is blessing or benefit), daffodils, green world, "clear rills" (brooks or rivulets), "cooling covert" (a hiding place), a bushy overgrowth in the midst of a forest sprinkled with "musk-rose blooms." He goes so far as to say that the after-life fate we conceive for the mighty who have died, which is to be "An endless fountain... / Pouring unto us...", is part of the beauty that "moves away" our pall.

In "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," we see accord with the above discussion. In one opinion, the poem is a lesson against the deceptive power of feminine beauty and, in that regard, can be compared to Tennyson's similar warning against masculine beauty in "The Lady of Shalott." Another view sees the poem as Keats' lament at the love-betrayal of life since he knew his life was soon to end in tuberculosis.

In the first view, while the lady, representing feminine beauty, is the betrayer, it is nature that is all around giving great gifts to the couple while they idle in the meadow or amble on their horse ride to her "grot" (a grotto, which is a cave). Even after the knight's death, it is a lily on his forehead that is the parting tribute from beauty to his lost life. In the second view, life is the betrayer and is cast as a faery lady while nature is still that which gives joyous moments and comfort, as through the lily on his brow.

In addition, the poem accords with the above because, in the first view, it is the lady's lack of nobility in her nature and "o'er darkn'd ways" that cause the knight's morbid death. In the second view, it is life's despondence and unhealthfulness that cause the knight's death. Again, in both views it is the lily that gives the parting, lingering kiss of benediction to the departed knight.

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