John Keats poem “
The Belle Dame Sans Merci” is in
ballad form and told in twelve
stanzas. The basic plot line here is someone coming across a troubled looking
knight who tells a story about a women who seduced him. The
romantic sensibilities of
Keats are apparent in this poem that teaches no lesson but which focuses on the knight’s feelings. The first three lines of each stanza are
iambic tetrameter with the fourth line being shorter and changing in number of syllables. “ABCB” is the
rhyme scheme for each of these stanzas.
- / - / - / - /
O what can ail thee, knight at arms, A
- / - / - / - /
Alone and palely loitering? B
- / - / - / - /
The sedge had wither’d from the lake, C
- / - /
And no birds sing. B
The first three
stanzas set up the poem. We find an
anonymous traveler who has apparently stumbled across a knight who doesn’t look quite right. Something “
ails” the knight, who is “
alone and palely
loitering”, and “so haggard and woe-begone.” The traveler, who is the narrator at this point, also sees in the knight signs of anguish,
fever, and more paleness in his face. Not only does the knight appear in such a
bad state of
health, but he is also conspicuously out of place. He is alone where the traveler found him, seemingly lost at a time of year when he should be inside or at least closer to somewhere normal. The imagery of
Autumn in the lines “The
sedge has wither’d from the lake, / And no
birds sing” and the lines “the
squirrel’s granary is full, / And the harvest’s done” further serve to make the knight appear more desolate and give the impression that
something is wrong.
During the middle six stanzas of the poem the reader will find out what has brought the knight into his
predicament. These stanzas are narrated by the knight himself who delivers his tale to the traveler of the poems title character, “
La Belle Dame sans Merci.” These lines are full of hints that this woman is some sort of
supernatural occurrence. Her appearance is different, she was “full beautiful, a
fairy’s child” and twice described as having wild eyes. She seems to not have spoken the knights
language as he tells of her
singing “a
fairy’s song” and declaring her love in “
language strange.” Further setting her apart are the facts of her feeding him “
honey wild” and “
manna dew” while she lives in an “
elfin grot.” The knight says, “I set her on my pacing
steed,” perhaps the
horse was pacing because it was nervous with sensing something mystical about this woman. In any case, the knight recalls the
romance he had with this unlikely woman and it seems
perfect until the after she brings him to her home and began to weep and sigh.
In the last three stanzas the knight tells how it seems he got to be where he is. He tells of the dream he had after the woman
lulled him
asleep. This dream is what casts the woman as a true
malevolent,
supernatural creature. The
kings,
princes, and warriors he sees in his dream are all pale and in fact, “death pale were they all.” These men in the dream are those who tip the reader and knight off when they warn, “
La belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall.” The knight sees “their
starv’d lips” that are gaped with the “
horrid warning” to get away from this woman. The men in the
dream must be those past victims of this woman and they don’t want to see the knight go through it all like they have. On the hill wandering about is where the knight finds himself because the
dream vision couldn’t come in time. The woman is gone, the
knight is all alone and he seems to be trying to find her again as if the briefly
perfect romance was worth it.
Duality is exhibited in this poem through the thoughts of the
knight. He has been ruined by a
supernatural woman yet it wasn’t half
bad and he wouldn’t mind going through it again. No lesson is learned in this
poem and
Keats isn’t trying to teach one. Vivid description of feelings and situation are what is given to the reader and are what makes this an example of
Romantic ideals.