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Keats took the title from a poem by the medieval
poet, Alain Cartier. It means, the beautiful woman without mercy.
"La Belle Dame sans Merci" seems easy to
understand at the narrative level. An unidentified passerby asks the
knight what is wrong (stanzas I-III). The knight answers that he has
been in love with and abandoned by a beautiful lady (stanzas IV-XII).
Because Keats is imitating the folk ballad, he uses simple language,
focuses on one event, provides minimal details about the characters,
and makes no judgments. Some
details are realistic and familiar, others are unearthly and strange.
As
a result, the poem creates a sense of mystery which has intrigued many
readers.
The poem has also puzzled most readers.
What does the poem mean? What is the nature of La Belle Dame sans
Merci? What is the meaning of the knight's experience? Why has the
knight, one of
Keats's dreamers, been ravaged by the visionary or dream experience?
What is the meaning of the dream? Was the knight deluded by his beloved
or did he delude himself?
Most readers take the anonymous speaker at face
value: he is a concerned passerby who comes upon the knight
accidentally
and who describes accurately and factually the condition of the knight
and the place where they meet. However, is it possible that the
knight's
pitiful condition exists only in the mind or perception of the
anonymous
speaker? We have only his word that the knight looks pale, haggard,
woe-begone, etc. To carry this train of thought to an extreme, we could
ask whether there
really is a knight. Could this entire poem be the hallucination of a
madman? If we accept any of these interpretations of the anonymous
speaker, is
the meaning of the poem affected? Is the effectiveness of the poem
affected?
Do we automatically make assumptions about
the speaker? Is the anonymous speaker male? Whether the speaker is male
or female, do we assume that the speaker is white? Why? Do these
assumptions affect our
reading of the poem and its effect on us?
Stanzas I-II
In the first two lines of stanzas I and II, the
anonymous speaker asks a question. The first line of both questions is
identical ("O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms"). The second lines
differ somewhat; in stanza I, the question focuses on his physical
condition ("Alone and palely loitering"); in stanza II, the question
describes both the knight's physical state and his emotional state
("Haggard and woe-begone"). This repetition with slight variation is
called incremental repetition
and is a characteristic of the folk ballad.
This speaker sees no reason for the knight's presence
("loitering") in such a barren spot (the grass is "wither'd" and no
birds sing). Even in this spot, not all life is wasteland, however; the
squirrel's winter storage is full, and the harvest has been completed.
In other words, there is an alternative or fulfilling life which the
knight could choose. Thus lines 3 and 4 of stanzas I and II present
contrasting views of life.
Stanza III
This stanza elaborates on the knight's
physical appearance
and mental state, which are associated with dying and with nature. In
the
previous stanzas, the descriptions of nature are factual; here, nature
is
used metaphorically. His pallor is compared first to the whiteness of a
lily, then to a rose; the rose is "fading" and quickly "withereth." The
lily,
of course, is a traditional symbol of death; the rose, a symbol of
beauty. The knight's misery is suggested by the "dew" or perspiration
on his forehead.
What is Keats trying to emphasize by using
both "fading" and "fast withereth"? Is there a difference in the effect
of "fading," the word Keats uses, and "faded"?
Part II: The Knight
The knight's narrative consists of three units:
stanzas IV-VII describe the knight's meeting and involvement with the
lady; stanza VIII presents the climax (he goes with her to the "elfin
grot"); the last four stanzas describe his sleep and expulsion from the
grotto. Thus, the first four stanzas (IV-VII) are balanced by the last
four
stanzas
(IX-XII). The poem returns to where it started, so that the poem has
a circular movement; reinforcing the connection of the opening and the
ending, Keats uses the same language.
Stanzas IV-IX
The roles of the knight and the lady change. In
stanzas
IV, V, and VI, the knight is dominant; lines 1 and 2 of each stanza
describe
his actions ("I met," "I made," "I set her"), and lines three and four
of
these three stanzas focus on the lady.
But a shift in dominance occurs; stanza VII is
devoted entirely to the lady ("She found" and "she said"). In stanza
VIII the lady initiates the action and takes the dominant position in
lines 1 and 2 ("She took me" and "she wept and sigh'd"); the knight's
actions are presented in lines three and four. In Stanza IX, she
"lull'd" him to sleep (line 1) and he "dream'd." The rest of this
stanza and the next two stanzas are about his dream.
Stanzas X and XI
Eight and a half lines of this poem are devoted
to his dream (the poem itself is only 48 lines long) and the last six
lines are about the consequences of the dream. The men he dreams about
are all men of power and achievement (kings, princes, and warriors).
Their paleness associates them both with the loitering pale knight and
with death; in
fact, we are told that they are "death-pale." The description of her
former
lovers, with their starved lips and gaping mouths, is chilling. Is it
appropriate that he awakens from this dream to a "cold" hill?
Can a political meaning be read into the poem
based on the fact the fact that the men in his dream are all kings,
princes, and warriors? Or is there a simpler explanation for their
status? The knight is of their kind and class, so naturally he dreams
of men like himself. Perhaps La Belle Dame sans Merci is attracted to
this kind of man. Or Keats may merely be imitating the folk ballad,
which is a traditional and conservative form and tends to observe class
lines.
Stanza XII
The knight uses the word "sojourn," which
implies he will be there for some time. The repetition of language from
stanza I also reinforces the sense of no movement in connection with
the knight. Ironically, although he is not moving physically, he has
"moved" or been emotionally ravaged by his dream or vision.
Whereas the impact of the lady on the knight is
clear, her character remains shadowy.  Why? You have a number of possibilities to choose
among; which one you choose will be determined by how you read the poem.
1. We see the lady only through the knight's
eyes, and he didn't know her. As a human being, he cannot fully
understand the non- mortal; she is a "faery's child," sings a "faery's
song," and takes him to an "elfin grot." She speaks "in language
strange" (VII). Whether she speaks a language unknown to the knight or
merely had an unfamiliar pronunciation, the phrase suggests a problem
in, if not a failure of communication. They are incompatible by nature.
2. The references to "faery" and "elfin"
suggest enchantment or imagination. Her "sweet moan" and "song"
represent art inspired by imagination. The lady, symbolizing
imagination, takes him to
an ideal world. The knight becomes enraptured by or totally absorbed in
the pleasures of the imagination--the delicious foods, her song, her
beauty,
her love or favor ("and nothing else saw all day long"). But the
imagination
or visionary experience is fleeting; the human being cannot live in
this
realm, a fact which the dreamer chooses to ignore. The knight's refusal
to let go of the joys of the imagination destroys his life in the real
world.
Or is she possibly the cheating or false
imagination, not true imagination? Does the food she gives him starve
rather than nourish him? The men in his vision have "starved lips."
Think of the ending
of "Ode to a Nightingale" with its "deceiving imp."
3. This possibility is a variant of choice #2.
The lady represents the ideal, and the poem is about the relationship
of the
real and the ideal. The knight rejects the real world with its real
fulfillments
for an ideal which cannot exist in the real world. In giving himself
entirely
to the dream of the ideal, he destroys his life in the real world.
4. The lady is evil and belongs to a tradition
of
"femmes fatales." She seduces him with her beauty, with her
accomplishments, with her avowal of love, and with sensuality ("roots
of relish sweet, / And honey wild, and manna dew"). The vision of the
pale men suggests she is deliberately destructive. The destructiveness
of love is a common theme in the folk ballad.
5. Is the knight self-deluded? Does he
enthrall himself by placing her on his horse and making garlands for
her? The knight ignores warning signs: she has "wild wild" eyes, she
gives him "wild"
honey, she avows her love "in language strange," and she "wept and
sigh'd
full sore" in the elfin grotto. Also he continues to desire her,
despite
the wasteland he finds himself in and despite the warning of his dream.
Lines 1, 2, and 3 of each stanza generally have
four feet and eight or nine syllables. However, the last line of each
stanza is a shorter line; it has only two or three feet and only four or five
syllables. This change is heard by the ear, even if the mind is not
conscious of the change, and calls attention to the short line. Look at
the last line
of each stanza and consider whether the idea presented in any of these
lines warrants this kind of emphasis or attention. Or did Keats make a
mistake?
An Alternate Reading
Other readings of this poem are possible and plausible, even
compelling. I am including a persuasively argued reading which was
proposed by a
student, Johnson Fleury-Stanis, which
you may prefer or which may inspire you to find your own reading of the
poem. |
