La Belle Dame sans Merci

• speaker

  first 3 stanzas and last 9 stanzas have different speakers. first 3 is from an anonymous speaker, the last 9 is the knight's response.
• La Belle Dame sans Merci (title )

  means the beautiful women without pity, has a negative tone. ambiguous and nameless. referring to an archetypal/archetypical femme fatale
• O what can ail thee, knight at arms, (stanza 1 and 2)

  the verb? ail connotes sickness and a troubled mood. this contrasts with the valiant/honourable/focused nature of a traditional knight. repetition - it is his main description.
• Alone and palely loitering?

  lexical field of isolation

  adv. + P.C.V - purposeless, a knight should be on a quest.
• The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing.

  the location is desolate, barren and lifeless.

  pathetic fallacy - the bleak image of winter mirrors his state.
• so haggard and so woe-begone?

  adj. - he looks awful/sad and not knightly. mentions the dangers of love.
• The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done.

  everyone is optimistic and ready for winter. symbolism of winter - harsh conditions, isolation, change/death-rebirth.
• I see a lily on thy brow,

  lily - symbolise death and used for funerals.

  lily - white/pale, symbolises his own self (ill)
• With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose

  moist - sweating

  metaphors for illness/pale and life draining from him (P.C.V).

  fading colour

  rose (connotes love) - fading love.

  fading - once full of passion but not anymore
• I met

  I made

  I set

  She found

  And there she lulled

  I saw

  I saw

  And this is why I sojourn

  change of speaker to knight. first person pronoun shift to second person. he was in control and she begins to take it.
• I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful - a faery's child,

  a supernatural and fantasy figure that is otherworldly.

  adj. describe her but almost objectify her. there are idealised and romantic descriptions
• Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

  his first impression of her - graceful, elegant

  end stopped line + adj. - foreshadows danger and her intentions.

  a dream-like description, he is absorbed, consumed , in adoration and in an entrapment. she is almost like enchantress.
• I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

  he is in control, active verb, gifting her things, he is enthralled by her.
• She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.

  ambiguity, euphemism, innuendo.
• I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long,

  almost hyponotised, drugged, under a spell. entraced.

  she is on the horse, above him and more empowered.
• For sidealong would she bend, and sing a faery's song.

  sibilance - mystical, links to a faery's child. otherworldly
• She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew.

  she is in control, alliteration and ambiguity - poison, or genuinely caring for him? the knight could be misunderstanding the woman's true intentions/motives. an idyllic setting/description.
• And sure in language strange she said - 'I love thee true'

  he believes he can understand her, hyphenated clause draws attention. he could be misunderstanding, he could be under a spell. there is no detailed description of her, she is a stranger, the information he has about her is not perfect. the knight is potentially an unreliable narrator.
• She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept and sighed full sore,

  she is still in control

  santa allusion

  wept and sighed could connote varying emotions, he does not truly understand her, and it is ambiguous as we don't know why she is feeling this way. he is blurring the lines of reality and his memory
• And there I shut he wild wild eyes With kisses four.

  active verb, he ignored the strangeness of her 'wild eyes' and is instead enthralled by her

  direct echo but also repetition, he is infactuated by her, cannot get passed or rid of his first impression
• And there she lulled me asleep And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -

  asleep - could connote death.

  hyphenated exclamation - impending doom

  juxtaposes the concept of a dream, making it seem closer to a nightmare. and links to line 7, suggesting the dangers of love (obsessive love)
• The latest dream I ever dreamt On the cold hill side.

  superlative/temporal reference - it was significant

  dream to dreamt -

  polyptoton/repetition.

  cold hill side - unwelcoming, foreboding and lonely.
• I saw pale kings, and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

  powerful figures - other victims.

  plosives: harshness of their situation and their strong feelings.

  pale - parallel to him, exactly how he felt/looked, the woman could have evil intentions.
• They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci Thee hath in thrall!'

  exclamation - desperation for him to escape.

  thrall - enchanted/under a spell

  they begin to warn him.
• I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide,

  images of suffering

  gloam - the time right after dusk, twilight, gloom. he sees their horrific condition and is fearful to end up like they did.
• And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill's side.

  the warning helped him escape the nightmare, break him from the dream/spell.

  repetition, direct echo - he becomes more aware of his surroundings and emphasises his loneliness.
• And this is why I sojourn here

  alone and palely loitering

  i sojourn - temporary (no purpose/reason to stay).

  semantic field of purposelessness and isolation - he is not a figure of action anymore, he is now a tragic figure, enslaved by love.
• Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing.

  repetition- cyclical structure - he is entrapped in this loop and is doomed the knight has explained what has happened and reiterates the state he is in.

  there is an image of stasis/impotency/despair

  in limbo - extremely uncertain, almost as if he is between heaven/hell and waiting to hear where he will end up.
• after stanza 9, how does the knight appear?

  lost, despairing, almost posthumous (continuing after death). the poet suggests love can lead to sickness/suffering
• ballad

  medieval genre/love
• form/structure

  traditional form

  a ballad stanza

  quatrain in alternating iambic tetrameter + trimeter lines ( 4 unstressed + stressed or opposite)

  ABCB rhyme scheme
• there is a shortened 4th line

  4 meters with an abrupt stop. the regular form subtly changes, there is a lack of a conclusion/ dissatisfaction/unease, we do not hear of the woman (there is no proper parting), the knight could have misinterpreted or hallucinated. it creates suspicion.

  4 syllables - iambic dimeter
• medieval poem/typical ballad characteristics

  trimeter/tetrameter - sounds pleasing

  simple language - easily remembered/understood by the readers.

  supernatural characters

  archaic language

  the refrain/cyclical structure: no birds sing
• interpretations

  1) dangers of obsession

  2) love, longing, seduction

  3) links to Keats' personal experience of painful love.

  4) pleasure, pain, desire

  5) deliberate parody of 'courtly' love, and how it does not lead to a positive/ happy ending.

  6) FEVERED IMAGINATION

  7) explores the supernatural, an otherworldly/unobtainable character

  8) the lady is the true victim of a patriarchal society.
• themes


  ethereal love

  obsessive love

  unreciprocated love

  illness

  control

  loss

  power of love

  dangers of love