John Keats: Biography and Romantic Poetry

• John Keats, a Romantic poet (1795-1821), reacted against the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, seeking beauty and wisdom in nature and emotion.
• Keats was born into a lower middle-class family in London.
• He attended school in Enfield and developed a love for classics and history.
• Keats's father died when he was eight, and his mother when he was fourteen.
• He apprenticed to a doctor the same year his mother died.
• In 1815, Keats began studying medicine at Guy's Hospital but desired to write poetry.
• After qualifying as a doctor, he devoted himself to writing, relying on his siblings for financial support.
• In 1818, Keats fell in love with Fanny Brawne but lacked the financial means to marry her.
• He cared for his brother Tom, who suffered from tuberculosis.
• In 1820, Keats became gravely ill with tuberculosis and traveled to Rome for a warmer climate.
• He died in Rome five months later, in 1821.
• Brawne was distraught upon hearing the news and mourned for six years.

Poem Background

• Written in 1819, reflecting Keats's love for Brawne and his financial insecurity.

Summary

• The poem involves a conversation between a speaker and a knight found ill on a hillside.
• The knight explains he was bewitched by a beautiful woman.
• She took him to her magical cave and put him to sleep.
• In his dream, he saw noble men enslaved and destroyed by love.
• Upon waking, he was alone on the hillside.

Message

• Women possess uncontrollable power that emasculates men, diverting them from their purpose.

Analysis

• The title, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," translates to "the beautiful lady without pity," indicating a cruel, unsympathetic woman.

• The title is borrowed from a 15th-century French poem by Alain Chartier.

• Written in ballad form, a medieval structure for performance.

• Ballad stanzas consist of four-line verses (quatrains) with an iambic rhythm.

• The fourth line of each stanza ends on an unstressed syllable, creating a sad, unresolved feeling.

• The poem begins with an emotional exclamation, "O," indicating something alarming.

• The speaker asks, "what can ail thee?" using archaic diction to create a medieval setting, meaning "what is making you sick?".

• The knight-at-arms is introduced as "alone and palely loitering," suggesting he's without his horse and looks sick.

• "Loitering" signifies waiting without a purpose, unusual for a knight.

• The setting, "The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing," depicts an unnatural, deadly environment.

• This uses pathetic fallacy, mirroring the knight's mood.

• The speaker repeats the question in the second stanza with variations, emphasizing the knight's suffering.

• The knight is described as "haggard" and "woe-begone," reinforcing the horror he's experienced.

• The season is winter, indicated by the squirrel's full granary and the completed harvest.

• The knight has a "lily on thy brow," a metaphor suggesting a pale, deathly complexion, also associated with the Virgin Mary.

• "Anguish" causes sweat on his face, and a "fading rose fast withereth" on his cheek, symbolizing abandoning love.

• The speaker is kind and sympathetic, contrasting with the cruel fairy.

• The knight explains, "I met a lady in the meads," who was "Full beautiful" but a "faery’s child.".

• She has long hair, a graceful step, and "her eyes were wild," suggesting malice.

• The knight makes love tokens for her, including a garland, bracelets, and a fragrant zone, drawing him into the natural realm.

• The fairy looks at him "as she did love," implying insincerity.

• The "sweet moan" implies sexual intimacy.

• The knight symbolically gives the fairy his manly power by putting her on "my pacing steed.".

• She is raised above him, given masculine power, and he becomes her servant.

• He is obsessed, seeing "nothing else saw all day long," as she sings "A faery’s song," possibly a bewitching spell.

• The fairy feeds him natural foods: "roots of relish sweet and honey wild, and manna dew.".

• "Manna" is magical food from heaven.

• She speaks a "language strange," highlighting her foreign nature.

• Her words, "I love thee true," are the only ones we hear from her, giving a masculine view of love.

• The fairy takes the knight to her "elfin grot" (cave), where "she wept and sighed full sore.".

• Her tears may be part of her seduction or indicate the knight's misunderstanding of her.

• He shuts her "wild wild eyes with kisses four," finding her intimidating.

• In the cave, she "lulled" him to sleep, taking him deeper into a frightening realm of love.

• Asleep, he dreams, exclaiming "Ah! Woe betide!", expressing grief.

• In his dream, he "saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors," who "cried" to him, "Le Belle Dame sans Merci Thee hath in thrall.".

• These powerful men are sickly and enslaved by the beautiful lady without pity.

• It is a symbolic description of how women can make men their playthings.

• The men have "starved lips" in the "gloam," implying abandonment and lack of nourishment.

• Their mouths "gaped wide" in "horrid warning," urging him not to be enslaved.

• He wakes "on the cold hill’s side," feeling winter's desolation without his lover.

• He explains "this is why I sojourn here," unable to find a permanent home.

• The end of the poem echoes the speaker's lines, answering the question of why the knight is "loitering."

• The poem ends with the knight stuck in obsessive love on the hillside, unable to escape the fairy's enslavement.