La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad

La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad

by John Keats

Poem Structure

Frame Device

Parallel first and last stanzas

First three stanzas - found alone and lost and is asked what happened to him

Last nine stanzas - recount the tale of his meeting with the faery

Diction

Title

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

...

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

Rhyme and Meter

"La Belle Dame sans Merci"

"The Beautiful Lady without Mercy"

"Dame" - means lady (13),

yet likened to a faery (14, 24)

Allusion to Alain Chartier's Poem

Rhyme Scheme: ABCB

Meter: Iambic Tetrameter, except last line of stanza

Singsongy, fantasy

Tone

• 1-3 - Curious
• 4 - In Awe
• 5-6 - Hopeful, reminiscent
• 7-8 - In Awe
• 9 - Shock, discovery
• 10-11 - Horror
• 12 - Beaten, Tired, Exhausted

Works Cited

• “Poetry Foundation.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2017, www.poetryfoundation.org.
• Walsh, William (1957). "John Keats", in From Blake to Byron. Middlesex: Penguin.
• Keats, John. “My Dear Fanny, - .” Received by Fanny Brawne, John-Keats.com - Letters, Feb. 1820, www.john-keats.com/briefe/000220.htm.

Summary

La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a ballad about a knight's tale of meeting a faery who seems to be infatuated with him, but after he falls asleep, he dreams of horrible things that happened to the men that were in his place before.

Imagery

• "loitering"
• "withered"
• "pacing steed"
• "Elfin grot"
• "cold hill side"
• "gapèd wide"

Background

Repetition

"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms"

"Pale"

"On the cold hill side"

Context

• Tuberculosis - symptoms of the victims in the knight's dream
• New neighbor just moved in who he was trying not to fall in love with

Figurative Language

Parallelism

Biography and Critique

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vIatq97V_usbJvlMT-FMQScsS6n1dJUR/view?usp=sharing

"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

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."

...

"Her hair was long, her foot was light,

and her eyes were wild"

Allusion

"Manna-dew" - the Bible

Related Works

Paintings

La Belle Dame sans Merci by Frank W. Dicksee

La Belle Dame sans Merci by Henry Maynell Rheam

Literature and Filmography

• Coraline: La belle is referenced
• The Poet of The Peaks: A movie based on the poem
• Bright Star: A movie about John Keats' life
• The Case of Three Gables: Holmes makes a comparison between one of the female characters and la belle dame

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

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.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

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;

She looked at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan

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.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,

And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,

And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—

The latest dream I ever dreamt

On the cold hill side.

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!’

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.

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.