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