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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 male or female, we do
assume 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. 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. |
