La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballard (184)

La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballard (184)

1. Portrayal of Women

   • She is the cause of his ailment; his preoccupation with what he cannot have
   • 'She looked at me as she did love, and made sweet moan. I set her on my pacing steed'
     • Feminist criticism: Rather than a temptress, she is a victim: 'moan' could be interpreted as a resistance rather than a consensual / sexual moan.
       • 'And there she wept and sighed full sore, and there I shut her wild wild eyes'
         • Is she weeping because she was taken advantage of? Repetition of wild could be wild in fear
     • 'as' Is perhaps 'as if' - the knight is the Speaker at this point therefore it is his interpretation and he may be manipulating the scenario. Similarly, this may just be a poetic device by Keats so that there are the correct amount of syllables in the lines to fit the form
   • The woman as the TEMPTRESS; leading the knight astray
     • 'Full beautiful - a faery's child, her hair was long, her foot was light, and her eyes were wild'
       • An emphasis on her physical beauty
       • Traditional folk lore
       • Ethereal and otherworldly - a symbol of allegory
       • Delicate and feminine mixed with the 'femme fatale' - wild implies her ability to invite danger. Strange combination with the usual presentation of women in the medieval world
     • 'she found me roots of relish sweet... and in language strange she said - 'I love thee true'. She took me to her elfin grot...Lulled me asleep
       • Active verbs; a switch in pronouns from I, I, I, She, She - change in control
       • Giving him gifts; temptation with gluttony
       • 'took me' - she has control of the situation; invites him to her domain
       • However, if she spoke in a strange language how would he know what she said? He's interpreted it therefore its likely untrue
     • 'lulled me asleep' - Victimising himself, a vulnerable uncontrolled state

2. Love: link to portrayal of women; chivalric love; love causing suffering

   • J. Barnard (2006): 'young lovers whose love is opposed in the real or everyday worlds' & 'La Belle Dame is an ominous, perhaps demonic, lover.'
     • DISAGREE!!!

3. The Medieval World

   • Unusual depiction of the 'knight-at-arms' - as he is 'palely loitering'. Usually presented as strong masculine figures. This description contradicts Keats's other knights
     • 'I saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, death pale were they all
       • Characters representing the feudal order
     • K. Sharkey (1927): Keats's knights often have an effeminate aura and are stripped of power.
   • Potential 'chivalric love' - 'I made a garland for her head, and bracelets too'; 'I set her on my pacing steed'

4. Mortality

   • His suffering is so intense it is even felt replicated in the lack of life and movement in Nature
     • 'The sedge has withered from the lake, and no birds sings'
       • There is an absence of life, almost deathly still
   • Imagery related to death: 'lily', a flower of death
   • 'I saw pale Kings...pale warriors, death-pale were they all; they cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci'
     • Repetition of pale compounds the sickly after-effects of men that have loved the lady (extent of suffering)
       • K.Sharkey (1927): Keats uses the Med World to transport his reader away into far distant lands [...] fairy creatures haunt the minds and feelings of men and women
     • 'Cried' = anguished, they are a collective all sharing an experience of suffering - they all decide to name her 'The Woman who has no mercy'. Are they blaming her for their pain and warning other men of her danger?

5. Poetic Devices

   • Ballard; Quantrains; cyclical structure: beginning mirrors the end to create an affect of never-ending suffering
   • 2 Poetic Personas: 1st Speaker is unnamed, unknown, framing the story as in a narrative form - because there is a lack of identity I assume this Speaker is more objective and therefore can be trusted
   • 2nd Speaker: IV: The Knights voice recollecting the ordeal of falling in love with the beautiful lady - his own story and version of events (Fem. Criticism)