La Belle Dame Sans Merci
John Keats
- Difficult time of love and loss.
- Brother died of tuberculosis.
- Fanny – relationship, engaged, but he died before they could marry.
Title
- French title meaning ‘The beautiful lady without mercy’.
- Earlier work – poem of the same name by Chartier. This is why the title is in French
rather than translated into English. French – medieval romance.
- Exotic and unknown, fairy-tale stye and enigmatic lady.
Structure
Form: 12 quatrains, English ballad. Variation of traditional ballad stanza. Lyrical
ballads.
Metre: strong metre drives the poem forward. Quatrains have alternating tetrameters
and trimeters. Rolling and sing-song pace. First three lines of each stanza are iambic
tetrameter, and each final line is shortened to 4 or 5 syllables. Start-stop rhythm.
Follows and breaks rules – fine line between known world and illusion. Fantasy vs
reality.
Language
- Two speakers, one unnamed and the other the knight (narrator).
- Tells his story of love and abandonment. Significant use of symbolism throughout
the poem.
- Vivid imagery.
- Careful attention to sound through alliteration, assonance, and repetition.
John Keats
- Difficult time of love and loss.
- Brother died of tuberculosis.
- Fanny – relationship, engaged, but he died before they could marry.
Title
- French title meaning ‘The beautiful lady without mercy’.
- Earlier work – poem of the same name by Chartier. This is why the title is in French
rather than translated into English. French – medieval romance.
- Exotic and unknown, fairy-tale stye and enigmatic lady.
Structure
Form: 12 quatrains, English ballad. Variation of traditional ballad stanza. Lyrical
ballads.
Metre: strong metre drives the poem forward. Quatrains have alternating tetrameters
and trimeters. Rolling and sing-song pace. First three lines of each stanza are iambic
tetrameter, and each final line is shortened to 4 or 5 syllables. Start-stop rhythm.
Follows and breaks rules – fine line between known world and illusion. Fantasy vs
reality.
Language
- Two speakers, one unnamed and the other the knight (narrator).
- Tells his story of love and abandonment. Significant use of symbolism throughout
the poem.
- Vivid imagery.
- Careful attention to sound through alliteration, assonance, and repetition.
