La+Belle+Dame+sans+Merci.+A+Ballad

Who is La Belle Dame Sans Merci?

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Emily: In John Keat’s poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” the woman described is likely a demon in the form of a temptress. A temptress is often characterized as a beautiful woman who seduces men, while a demon is an evil mystical being. The woman in the poem exemplifies her temptress-like abilities by having transfixed the knight with her beauty so that even if she remains largely reticent and possibly even ignorant (in the poem, the woman only speaks once) the knight stays with her and provides her with acts of kindness such as "[making] a garland for her head/and bracelets too..." (18-19). The knight hears warnings from all the men he sees in his dream, telling him "La belle Dame sans merci/Hath thee in thrall!" (39-40), that the woman is dangerous and has the knight in a trap. Additionally, the men the knight sees are all "death pale" (38), implying the demon-like powers of the temptress (killing those she seduces, much like a black widow spider). The knight is also quickly dying, described as the narrator as having "a lily on [his] brow...fast withereth too" (9-12) showing that these warnings are indeed true and confirming the woman as a demonistic temptress.

LIAM SOHI: In "La Belle Dame sans Merci," a ballad by John Keats, a pale knight is described, wating by a lake for a woman that he believed loved him. This woman, as described by the knight, seemed to be "a faery's child." (14) Right away, this gives the impression that this lady is not human, or at least not entirely. It is also clear in this poem that a shift of power occurs between the night and the woman: when they first meet, the knight is the one taking charge, illustrated by strong verbs such as: "I **set** her on my pacing steed." (21) However, later on, the faery begins to dominate the relationship, illustrated through verbs such as "she **took** me," (29) and "she **lulled** me asleep." (33) Based on Keats's own life, in which so much around him became haunted by death (including himself, as he knew that he would die of tuberculosis), it seems possible that this woman, who deceives the knight and leaves him abandoned could be life itself: she also has "wild wild eyes," (31), which are often associated with life. This theory is reinforced by the knight describing how, after the woman lulled him to sleep, he "dreamed (...) the latest dream [he] ever dreamt/ On the cold hill side." (34-36), showing both how the knight was left in the cold, as in death, and also how he experienced his last dream, which reinforces the popular connotation of death as the final sleep. Later, when the knight sees the other men in his dreamthey are all "death-pale," (38) having also been abandoned by the woman, and presumably by life. Their "starved lips" (41) show both their starvation for life, but also for love, based on the popular connotation of lips. This can reflect Keats's own regret at being torn away from his lover, Fanny Brawne, at such a young age. All of these clues suggest that Keats's own recognition of his approaching death were used to personnify life as a cruel woman betraying men as soon as they fell in love with her and appreciated her fully.

Maura: In John Keats's poem "La Belle Dame sans Merci", the "woe-be-gone" (6) knight speaks longingly of a woman he once loved. The knight describes the woman to be otherworldly, stating that she was "a faery's child" (14), had "wild" (16) eyes and spoke "in language strange" (27). Toward the beginning of the poem, the love between the woman and the knight appears strong, the woman presenting gifts of "roots of relish sweet and honey wild and manna-dew" (25-26) to the knight, and the knight making "a garland" (17) and "bracelets" (18) for the woman. Toward the end of the poem, however, their love disintegrates, the woman weeping and sighing "full sore" (34) and the knight awaking alone "on the cold hill side" (36). Through this the woman could be seen as representative of love in general. Love – at least what seems to be love – starts off new and wonderful, magical even, just like the woman, but it can quickly degrade, leaving one in a state of sadness and longing just as the knight. The knight also mentions in the poem that he had a nightmare of "death-pale" (39) "kings", "princes" (38) and "warriors" (39) warning him about his lover and makes a reference to their gaping, "starved lips" (41). The men in the dream could be seen as the many others who had found love – the woman – and lost it, leaving them horribly distressed, seemingly on the verge of death, yet still pining to find love again, their hungry lips symbolizing their longing for affection.

TJ Walton: 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' is a ballad written by John Keats. In the ballad a lonely knight is placed on a 'cold' hillside waiting for his love. In the ballad however, we see the lady only through the knight's eyes. From the knight's descriptions of the lady, "a faery's child", (14) we can conclude that she is either immortal or not real at all. The knight also gives us the impression that the lady is some sort of beautiful enchantress, "her hair was long, her foot was light, and her eyes were wild." (15) The word 'wild' may lead us to believe that the lady is not only and enchantress but some form of demon, or in this case, a 'faery'. The faery seduces the knight with her soothing voice and her sensual nature "sweet moan" (20), "roots of relish sweet." (25) During the knight's dream we can see that other considerably important men were described as pale which suggests that she is deliberately destructive "I saw pale kings and princes too." (37) The destructiveness of love presented in this ballad may reflect what Keats had to go through in real life when he found out he was ill.

Crystal: The ballad "La Belle Dame sans Merci", by John Keats, seems to be a parallel to his own life with tuberculosis. The "lady in the meads" (13) that the knight meets seems to represent Keats's own life and when she leaves it illustrates how his sickness is slowly killing him. Throughout the poem, the knight is portrayed as a dying man "with anguish moist and fever dew" (10), which may have been what Keats was suffering through during his own sickness. The woman is seen as "a faery's child" (14), who is beautiful and can provide something which Keats seems to be longing for since the start of the poem. However, when she leaves she seems to have taken his life with her and has left the knight "along and palely loitering" (46), similar to the state he was in before. Because she is a faery, and he is a human, they cannot be together. Just as Keats's himself cannot survive with the sickness

Pamela: The title character in the ballad "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by John Keats could represent the narrator's dream of his perfect woman, the love of his life. The idea that this woman is so far just a dream he conceived begins with the title (0), which is in French. The fact that it is not in Keats' first language conveys the idea that there is something about the poem that is a disconnect from reality and normal life. French is also a language which has associations with the whimsical and amorous, again lending itself to the establisment of this woman as being the love of his dreams rather than reality. The meaning of the title, the beautiful woman without thanks, could be indicative of the unforgiving and ungrateful nature of the conceptualized perfect woman because she cannot respond to his love. The idea that he "met a lady in the meads"(13) further contributes to the narrator's dream of his true love. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the archaic meaning of meads is meadow. The idea of meeting a woman in a meadow is so whimsical and romantic that it sets the tone of the narrator's account of his lover as dream-like rather than real and tangible. The Belle Dame is also described as "a faery's child" (14) singing "a faery's song" (24) and living in "an elfin grot" (29), characterizing her as otherworldy and not human, which could portray the folly of the narrator's idealistic dream. The description of the "pale kings and princes" (37) could be those consumed and then disappointed by a futile quest for perfect love rather than victims of an actual temptress who led them to their doom. The story jumps abruptly from the pale princes to when the narrator "awoke and found me here, on the cold hill's side" (44), as if he is suddenly waking from a dream. Furthermore, the coldness of the hill juxtaposes with the passion they had as "she looked at me as she did love, and made sweet moan" (19-20), giving us the idea that he is being pulled back into the depressing reality of the non-existence of his dream woman.

Daisy “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is a ballad by John Keats presenting an idealistic lover dreamt up by a knight, who loiters in a barren field waiting for her return. The knight describes the lady as “a faery’s child” (15), whose “foot was light” (16) and “eyes were wild” (17). As a fairy, her possession of immortality separates her from the mortals, which makes her more idealistic than realistic, and the lightness of her footsteps implies that she is intangible and elusive, like a dream. When she told the knight “I love thee true” (28) she spoke in a language “strange” (27). The strange language can be interpreted in two ways, either it is a language foreign to the knight or her way of speech was odd and unusual. Either way, the oddity of her language further separates her from the ordinary world, as she is unlike any other woman the knight have met. When the knight woke from his dreams, he found himself on a “cold hill’s side” (44) which is a different place to where he first met the Fay. The shift in environment suggests that the “mead” (13) may have been an imaginary place that never existed, just like his dream woman whom he will never meet again.

Avril The poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci. A Ballad” is about the transience of love. The knight meets a beautiful “faery child” (line 17) and falls madly in love with her. Her “long hair”(16), “light feet” (16) and “wild eyes” (17) enthrall our knight. This faery child even masters the English language to whisper sweet nothings to him (“And sure in language strange she said” 28). The knight dreams of ghosts who warn him that the faery, in whom he has fallen in love, is really a witch without mercy. (“Thee hath in thrall!”(40)) He awakes alone, confronting the cold reality of a winter landscape where birds do not sing. Keats in this poem is perhaps writing of love as an unreliable hand-maiden, who captures his fantasy, and in the end, drops him to confront the cold alone.

Abhinav

In John Keats’ ballad, ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci,’ an unknown narrator asks a lonely and dying knight about his grievances; the knight proceeds to recount his story about a beautiful woman he met. Keats uses the poem to represent himself as the knight and the belle dame as the disease that eventually kills him (tuberculosis). Importantly, the knight is introduced as a man of power; he is initially described as a “knight-at-arms,” which evokes emotions about power and strength (1). However, this knight is then metaphorically described as “withered” (3) and “haggard” (6). This contrast at the beginning of the poem hints at the eventual downfall of the knight from a position of power to a position of weakness and death. When describing the dame, he calls her “a faery’s child” (14) who took him to “her elfin grot” (29). This indicates that the dame was probably not a mortal human being, and possessed some traits or powers unknown to the knight. When the knight has a dream about others who succumbed to the dame’s advances, he describes them as “pale warriors, death-pale were they all,” (38). This description indicates that the dame clearly killed many of those who she had previously met, which lends to the interpretation that she could represent the deadly disease. In addition, indications of this can be seen when Keats’ makes several references to nature’s success, such as when he describes the squirrel that completed its harvest, and then introduces the lady as a woman with “wild” eyes (16). This does two things; it contrasts the success of those around him with his own failure while also equating the dame with nature. As most diseases are natural and can’t be (at least in that time period) treated, Keats alludes to her as blending in and fitting in with the nature around her to emphasize how she is eternal and, possibly, unstoppable.

So Yeon: The identity of the beloved woman in the poem written by John Keats, “La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad.” is not explicitly stated. In the poem, the speaker refers to the knight and his beloved lady who never responds to his sincere love; Keats utilizes the knight as a representative figure of himself who has never been fully capable of dispelling his dream of an ideal lover, yet, has constantly suffered devastation at the confrontation with the reality which has harshly betrayed his dream. The beautiful woman that the knight is infatuated with is a representation of an ideal woman that the knight – Keats – has always envisioned. Keats’ description of the lady as a “faery’s child (14),” hints that she will not be able to respond to his love, for she is not a real-life figure, but an imagined figure in Keats’ mind. The achievement of love with this lady seems almost unrealistic and impalpable, just as the love between a fairy and human is. Keats’ imagination of his ideal lover further deepens as the knight is “lulled asleep (33)” by the woman. The present idea of the knight being put into sleep, dream, by the lady, also illustrates the knight’s image of the ideal woman to be unlikely and disconnected from the reality. Although she seems to respond to the knight with “sweet (25),” language as she declares, “‘I love thee true,’ (28),” soon, he wakes up from his “latest dream (35)” “on the cold hill side (36).” Keats strongly wishes the ideal woman of his dream to love him back, yet, Keats cannot avoid the pains of unrequited love, for in the “cold (36)” reality and outside his perfect dream, he feels that the existence of such truthful lady is questionable and therefore will not be able to receive nor respond to his love. The fact that such a woman is a mere fabrication of his highly idealistic dream is what brings him into the state of despair and is also what makes the fair woman so merciless in the end.

Adrian: “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is a poem written by John Keats, about a dying man whose love is unrequited. The lady in described in the poem seems to be a wraith of a memory long past. She is a memory that eats at a man, draining him of all vitality. She represents regret and longing. Keats describes her as dream-like with words like “faery child”, and “light” and “elfin”. The strong memories of the herbs of “honey wild, relish sweet, and manna dew” are symbols of the physical longing of a past event. The memory also appears to be distorted as Keats described her telling him that she loved him “in language strange”, which may mean that the love that he felt in the memory was uncertain, and perhaps one sided. The whole story that “the knight” tells is a metaphor, and the descriptions of the first three stanzas are describing his life, that is just passing by him as he wallows in this lost memory. The line “The sedge has wither’d from the lake, and no birds sing,” sets the joyless mood of his life. The line “The squirel’s granary is full and harvest done,” talks about how the man’s prime years are passing by and everyone else’s work is done, dreams fulfilled, and he is still stuck in his memory.

Teresa In //La Belle Dame sans Merci,// a ballad written by John Keats, a woeful knight explains to the anonymous speaker the reason behind his anguish. The knight’s distress is caused by a beautiful lady he met in the meads, and through his ballad his longing for this perfect, idealistic lady is clearly evident. The lady could be a representation of the ideal woman, as she is described by the knight as ‘full beautiful’ (14), just like ‘a faery’s child’ (14). Her faery-like qualities, ‘wild’ (16) eyes and strange language all contribute to the portrayal of her as idealistic but also possibly immortal, completely different from all other women. The knight’s tone of voice when he describes his relationship with the lady is full of love and awe; he is so entranced by the ‘roots of relish sweet, and honey wild, and manna-dew’ found by the lady for him, her ‘faery’s song’ (24) and her beauty. He is captivated by what he perceives to be ‘ideal’. As the knight is lulled to sleep by the lady, he dreams of 'death-pale' (38) kings, princes and warriors, who are similarly pale and close to death as he is. The kings, princes and warriors cry out ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ (39), which translates into ‘the beautiful lady with no mercy’, suggesting that they too tried to pursue the ‘ideal woman’ but failed, which led to their horrible plight. The dream serves as a warning to the knight, marking and reminding him of the difference between ‘ideal’ and ‘real’. If the knight was to pursue this idealistic lady and be fully absorbed by the ‘ideal’, he too, would suffer consequences similar to that of the other men. In the last stanza, the knight awakes from his dream and is back to loitering alone, bringing him from his ideal world with the lady back to reality, causing him to enter a state of despair at the harsh improbability that his ideal world will ever become true.

Alice In Keats’s poem, //La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad,// he describes a solemn and lonely knight positioned in a dying environment who too is waiting for his inevitable fate, death. The poet’s defeated tone, which is most likely brought upon by his diagnosis of Tuberculosis, is voiced through the young knight who becomes blindsided by this lady, “a faery’s child” who represents Keats’s idealized vision of life as a tangible character. This lady temptress is often described with an imaginary and allusive connotation though that stating she sang, “a faery’s song” (24) or spoke, “in language strange” (27). Therefore foreshadowing that her love for the knight and his experience with her in return is quite surreal. As a consequence of the knight devoting himself entirely to the dream world she created, or in other worlds Keats having been consumed by his first tastes of love and life, they both have destroyed their lives in the real world. This is shown though the switch in power from the knight to the lady. At the first introduction of the lady, the knight is empowering her by being the one who “made a garland” and “set her” on his horse. He saw her, touched her, smelled her “fragrant zone” (18) heard her make a, “sweet moan” (20), and this all contributed to his establishment of her love being real. However she then takes command and “took [him] to her elfin grot” (29) and “lulled [him] asleep” (33). In a sense, both the knight and Keats have only gotten a taste out of love and out of life before they are abruptly faced with reality. When the knight “awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side”(44), this motif of coldness once again portrays the sense of paleness and death which brings him to such despair and depression for his blindness towards the lady's infidelity. This poem is a complaint such that Keats is mocking the shortness of his life, concluding that he has given up and prepared for his fate by answering the curious narrator, “and this is why I sojourn here…palely loitering” (45-46).

Evan John Keat's poem, "La Belle Dame sans Merci (The Beautiful, Merciless Woman), A Ballad" depicts a knight, waiting alone, surrounded by death, being inquired about his current temperament, and retells the story of a his encounter with a beautiful woman. Prominent in the first few stanzas are Keat's references to death, through the passing of seasons into Winter, "sedge has withered from the lake,\ And no birds sing." (3-4) This gives off the presence of death. Later, Keat's describes "a lily on thy brow," (5) and "a fading rose\ Fast withereth too." (7-8) The lily can connote death, and adds to the knights "palely" presence, while the fading rose suggests the dying love between the knight and the woman. Keat's highlights that while the two were passionate, the woman "wept and sighed full sore" (30) perhaps as if she knew that they could never be together. The knight relates his following dream of "pale kings and princes" (37) who pitied the knight, for now this woman "thee hath in thrall!" (40) The knight wakes up alone and elsewhere; as the ghostly, deathly figures declared, he was now enslaved to the memory of this mysterious woman. This is highlighted when Keat's repeats a description of the knight: "Alone and palely loitering" (46). This demonstrates how the woman has left him, yet he is still waiting, just like the men he has seen in his dream.

Lesedi In John Keats’ poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci, the lady being described in the poem is most likely not human which is implied when she is described as “a faery’s child”. Her behaviour suggests that she is an angel of death because she begins by treating him exceptionally well before sending him to the cold hill, shown in stanza seven when “She found [him] roots of relish sweet”(25) and “in some strange language said I Love thee true”(28). After gaining his trust she lulled to sleep and this is also where her true colours are shown. On the cold hill he saw kings and princes and “They Cried La Belle Dame sans Merci Thee hath in thrall”(40), This just indicates that he is not her first victim. “I saw their starved lips in the gloam”(41) Which suggests that they were all her lovers before they were sent to this cold hill and this also implies that the only way she can send them to the cold hill is by kissing them.