La Belle Dame sans

MerciThe AutorStorylineThe Poem’s InspirationForm and StyleInterpretation

Presented by: BITANGCOR, Cindy

B. MANAN, Almera O.

John Keats (1795-1821)Author Biography

Oct 31, 1795John Keats Borned

1802Brother Died

1803Started School

Apr 16, 1804Father Died

1805Mother Disappeared

1809Mother Returns

Mar 1810Mother Died

1811Left School

1815Starts Medical School

Oct 1816Becomes Serious About Poetry

Dec 1816Left Medicine

Mar 3, 1817First Poems Published

Jul 1818Walking Tour

Nov 28, 1818Finishes Endymion

Dec 1, 1818Brother Died

1819Meets Fanny Brawne

Feb 3, 1820Tuberculosis Appeared

Jul 1820Final Poems Published

Sep 17, 1820Sails for Italy

Feb 23, 1821John Keats died.

Author BiographyJohn Keats (1795-1821) • Son of a stablekeeper

• raised in Moorfields, London• attended the Clarke School in Enfield• Richard Abbey took care of Keats

and his three younger siblings• entered Guy's and St. Thomas's

Hospitals in London, becoming an apothecary in 1816 and continuing his studies to become a surgeon

• at age of 21 ( free of Abbey's jurisdiction)

• associating with artists and writers, among them Leigh Hunt, who published Keats's first poems in his journal, the Examiner

• first symptoms of tuberculosis• fell in love with Fanny Brawne• final work, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve

of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, which included his famous odes and the unfinished narrative, Hyperion: A Fragment

• traveled to Italy in 1820 in an effort to improve his health

• died in Rome the following year at the age of 25

La Belle Dame sans Merci

• There are two versions of this very famous balladfirst version- original manuscript second version- first published form

• Original version is found in a letter to Keats's brother, George, and dated Weds 21 April 1819

• First published in the Indicator on 10 May 1820

La Belle Dame sans Merci

written in 1819 and published the next year depicts a knight-at-arms who has been seduced and

abandoned by a capricious fairy recounts the experience of loving dangerously and fully,

of remaining loyal to that love despite warnings to the contrary, and of suffering the living death of one who has glimpsed immortality

At the beginning and end of the poem, the knight remains on "a cold hill's side," a world devoid of happiness or beauty, waiting for his love to return.

The Story

Meeting of the knight and the unknown speaker

O what can ail thee, knight at arms,

Alone and palely loitering? The sedge is wither'd from

the lake, And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight at arms,

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever

dew, And on thy cheeks a fading

rose Fast withereth too.

The knight’s story

I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful, a faery's child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew,

And sure in language strange she said- I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept, and sighed deep,

And there I shut her wild sad eyes So kissed to sleep

The dream

And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dream'd-Ah! woe betide!

The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they

all; They cried-"La belle dame sans

merci Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke, and found me here

On the cold hill's side.

Ending

And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing.

Form and Style

La Belle Dame Sans Merci is divided into twelve four-line stanzas, called quatrains.

O what/ can ail /thee knight/ at arms,/ AAlone/ and pale/ly loi/tering?/ BThe sedge/ is with/er'd from/ the lake/, CAnd no/ birds sing/. B

Alone and palely loitering (line 2): alliteration lily on thy brow (line 9): metaphor, comparing the

knight's paleness to the hue of a lily And on thy cheeks a fading rose (line 11): metaphor,

comparing the color of his cheeks to the color of a rose.

Full beautiful, a faery's child (line 14): alliteration.roots of relish, sighed full sore (line 25): alliteration.

And there . . . (lines 30, 31, 33, 34): anaphora I saw pale Kings, and Princes too / Pale warriors,

death pale were they all (lines 37-39): alliteration

*ANAPHORA -Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of word groups occurring one after the other

Figures of Speech

Themes

Love—unrequited love Nature Despair The Supernatural

The Poem’s Inspiration

A dream in which he met a beautiful woman in a magical place which turned out to be filled with pallid, enslaved lovers. Spenser's Florimel, in which an enchantress impersonates a heroine to her boyfriend, and then vanishes. The promise of life and joy in love Health Family background

Interpretation

a poem about Life and Death.a comment on Love and Loyaltya poem about unfulfilled hope and promise—

of love and desire, of ideals, hopes, dreams, expectations

Media Adaptationpopular subject for the Pre-Raphaelite painters

Sir Anthony Hughes /John William Waterhouse/Frank Cadogan Cowper/Henry Maynell Rheam

Sir Frank Dicksee Walter Crane

Media Adaptations A reading of "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is available on a compact disc called

Conversation Pieces, released in 2001 by Folkways Records. A compact disc named Songs, released in 2001 on the Hyperion label, has a

version of "La Belle Dame sans Merci" set to music and sung by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.

The 1996 two-cassette set The Caedmon Collection of English Poetry features various poetic masterpieces, including "La Belle Dame sans Merci,"

Sir Ralph Richardson reads "La Belle Dame sans Merci" on a 1996 Caedmon audiocassette release called The Poetry of Keats.

HighBridge Co. of St. Paul, Minnesota, includes "La Belle Dame sans Merci" on John Keats, Poet, a reading of Keats's poems by Douglas Hodge released on

audiocassette in 1996 Listen Library Inc. included "La Belle Dame sans Merci" on its 1989 audiocassette, The Essential Keats.

A 1963 LP recording from Spoken Arts Records entitled Robert Donat Reads Favorite

Poems at Home includes the famous actor's rendition of "La Belle Dame sans Merci.“

Lexington Records released a recording of Theodore Marcuse reading "La Belle Dame sans Merci" produced in 1950