La Belle Dame sans Merci A Ballad

We have all been tempted by something or the other – whether it's a box of chocolates or a trip to a tropical island halfway across the world. Some of us have even been tempted by beauty and the promise of love, which is the case in John Keats' folklore-inspired ballad ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ (1819). Let us explore this poem in the context of Romanticism and the poets’ own experiences with sickness, death, and love.

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad': overview

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad': context

The poem 'La Belle Dame sans Merci' is a classic example of Keats's romanticism with its focus on emotions, nature, and the supernatural. The poem also has various contexts that inform the poem's subject and form as well as the reasons for why the poem is considered characteristic of the Romantic period.

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad': biographical context

This poem was written months after Keats’ brother, Thomas, died of tuberculosis. Keats also lost his mother to this illness. Tuberculosis was known as the consumption disease at the time, and, as there was no cure for the disease, it was fatal. A key early symptom of this infection was a deathly pallor and, therefore, as the knight in the poem is repeatedly referred to as pale, sickly, and near death, this could be considered a reference to tuberculosis. At this time, Keats was also suffering from the early stages of tuberculosis, which he likely contracted while he was caring for his brother Thomas.

The poem was also written during the height of Keats’ courtship with Fanny Brawne. He is reported to have idolised her, much like the knight in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci' was infatuated with the fairy woman. Fanny later became his fiancée, however, Keats died before they could marry.

As Keats and his loved ones dealt with the reality of tuberculosis, he was very aware of his own mortality. Because of this, the knight and the fairy's relationship could also be seen as representative of Keat's and Fanny's doomed romance.

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad': historical context

Ballads, which were traditionally songs or poems that told stories, were popular in the middle ages. The narrative of ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ takes its inspiration from medieval folktales and poetry about the fairy queen.

Fig. 1 - The depiction of the Queen of the Fairies in the poem is from folk stories. Romantic poems often explore folk or medieval tales as a counterpoint to the growing industry happening in the 19th century.

Parallels can also be drawn to the ballad of ‘Thomas Rhymer and the Queen of Elfland’ (1804) by Walter Scott. In both poems, a young man meets a beautiful fairy woman who takes him to fairyland. This is layered with the theme of temptation, which draws in the young man and makes him follow to fairy woman into the unknown. However, in the ballad of 'Thomas Rhymer and the Queen of Elfland', the young man is not abandoned.

Instead, Thomas works as the fairy woman's silent servant for seven years. Other parallels between the two poems include both men eating food offered to them by a fairy, riding on horseback with a fairy, and falling under a fairy's thrall. Whilst published in the nineteenth century, the origins of Scott's poem are much older, having been taken from a fourteenth-century manuscript.

In drawing the parallel between the two ballads, an argument can be made for the popularity of the ballad form during the early 19th century in English poetry, and also the fascination with otherworldly beings that defied the rationality prized by Classicism. The fanciful and whimsical nature of the two ballads is embodied by the fairy, who is almost a siren-like figure calling out to the young men.

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad': literary context

The poet and his works belong to the literary movement of Romanticism.

Many key characteristics of Romanticism can be seen in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ from its form to its content, such as:

• The ballad form: Romantic poets often used this form of poetry, and ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ is a folk narrative ballad.

• The expression of passionate feelings: this can be seen in the love-sick knight’s feelings for the fairy.

• The use of natural imagery: this poem is full of natural imagery that contrasts fertile and barren natural landscapes.

• The supernatural: the beautiful woman without any mercy for the knight is no human woman. She is modelled on the dangerous fairy women of medieval English folklore as she is ageless, ancient, and malevolent.

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad': poem

Below is the full poem to be analysed. Count the meter and note down the rhyme scheme as you go.

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad': summary

In the first three stanzas, the knight is addressed by an unknown speaker who asks him why he is alone and unwell, wandering in a lifeless landscape. Then, the narration is passed to the knight who replies and recounts the sad tale of how he was seduced and tricked by a beautiful fairy.

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad' could be interpreted as a didactic warning against the dangerous power of love. Whilst in love, the knight blindly trusts the fairy. Sure that she will not harm him, he falls asleep in her grotto, an act that ultimately leads to his doom. Upon finding that his love was not returned, he slowly withers away.

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad': analysis

The title ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ is in French. It translates to 'the beautiful lady without mercy'. This ominous title foreshadows the fairy woman’s cruel actions.

Form

The consistent rhyme scheme of the poem gives the ballad of La Belle Dame sans Merci a song-like quality. Furthermore, it has a story-feel to it because it has a beginning, middle, and end as a story would and also two main characters whose experiences and interactions are described, namely the fairy and the young knight.

Structure

This ballad is composed of twelve stanzas. Each stanza is a quatrain (a stanza with four lines) which gives the poem a sense of balance. Iambic tetrameter is used throughout the ballad, adding to its uniformity.

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad': rhyme scheme

The second and fourth lines of each quatrain rhyme, so the scheme is ABCB. It remains consistent throughout the whole poem.

Language devices and techniques

Keats uses enjambment throughout the poem, which helps his narrative to flow smoothly by mimicking natural speech patterns.

The last line of the first stanza, '[a]nd no birds sing', is repeated in the last line of the final stanza. This repetition leaves the reader with a final impression of the doomed knight, wandering across a joyless, barren landscape.

Repetition is also used to emphasise the pallor of the ghost-like figures in the knight's dream 'pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale'. This helps to establish that, like the many who came before him, the pale knight is now doomed.

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad': themes

This ballad contains three key themes: seduction and unrequited love, illness and death, and illusion and reality.

Seduction and unrequited Love

The knight adores and idealises the beautiful fairy who seduces him with her appearance and otherworldly singing. They spend all day together, and physical intimacy is alluded to in the lines '[s]he looked at me as she did love / And made sweet moan'. Trusting her, the knight falls asleep in her grotto, but, when he wakes up, he finds he has been abandoned in a cold and barren landscape. His feelings of love were not truly returned.

Fig 2 - La Belle Dame sans Merci explores themes such as seduction, illusion, and mortality.

Illness and Death

The ballad suggests that the knight’s encounter with the beautiful, merciless fairy has left him sick and near death.

Consider the lexis of sickness used to portray the knight after his encounter with the fairy, such as 'palely', 'ail', 'haggard', 'withereth', and 'fever-dew'. The landscape is depicted as similarly lifeless, as it is devoid of birds and the lake’s greenery has died.

Illusion and Reality

The knight experiences a dream in which the ghosts of the fairy’s past victims appear to warn him. When he wakes up, cold and pale surrounded by a barren, lifeless landscape, it appears that the dream was prophetic. This calls into question the nature of illusion and reality. When the knight encounters the fairy, he is drawn into her ethereal beauty despite the gruesome reality of following her to fairyland, shown to him in a dream by the fairy's past victims.

'La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad': symbols

In ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad’, the poet uses different flowers to symbolise how close the knight is to death.