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A* revision notes GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"
A* revision notes for GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"
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La Belle Dame Sans MerciIt is divided into twelve quatrains.
"La Belle Dame sans Merci" is a ballad, a medieval genre revived by the romantic
poets. The shortening of the fourth line in each stanza of Keats' poem makes the
stanza seem a self-contained unit, gives the ballad a deliberate and slow
movement, and is pleasing to the ear (song like quality). Keats uses a number of
the stylistic characteristics of the ballad, such as simplicity of language, repetition,
and absence of details; like some of the old ballads, it deals with the supernatural.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci, the beautiful lady without pity, is
a femme fatale, a Circe-like figure who attracts lovers only to
destroy them by her supernatural powers. She destroys because
it is her nature to destroy. Keats could have found patterns for his
"faery's child" in folk mythology, classical literature, Renaissance
poetry, or the medieval ballad.
La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad
BY JOHN KEATS
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered 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.
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 looked 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,
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