Summary of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by John Keats

Overview

• Discusses the poem as featured in the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Anthology, Part 3.
• Focus on language and literary devices.
• Poem is a ballad with a narrative structure.

Title Analysis

• La Belle Dame Sans Merci: "The beautiful lady without mercy."
• Refers to a "femme fatale": a dangerous, deceptive, and seductive woman.
• Sets the theme of the knight's ailment and the femme fatale being central.

Poetic Form

• A ballad with quatrains (four-line stanzas).

Stanza-by-Stanza Analysis

Stanza 1

• Introduces an anonymous speaker encountering a knight.
• Knight is described as "alone and palely loitering."
• Literary Devices:
  • Rhetorical Question: "O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms?"
  • Caesura: Focuses attention on the knight's ailment.
  • Metaphor: "The sedge has withered" represents the knight's condition.

Stanza 2

• Repeats rhetorical question, emphasizing the knight's misery.
• Repetition and Anaphora: "Thee" focuses on the knight.
• Describes a bleak, wintry landscape.

Stanza 3

• Imagery: "I see a lily on thy brow" - the knight's pallor.
• Metaphor: "Fading rose" reflects the knight's lost vitality.

Stanza 4-5

• Knight's perspective, introduces the femme fatale.
• Alliteration: "Full beautiful a fairy's child" - emphasis on beauty.
• Semantic Field of Body Parts: Reflects knight's attraction.
• Traditional Courting: Garland and bracelets symbolize traditional romance.

Stanza 6

• Sensual Imagery: "Made sweet moan" - knight captivated by her.
• Knight is obsessed and seduced by her charms.

Stanza 7

• Alliteration: "Roots of relish sweet" - describes nourishment.
• Religious Allusion: "Manna dew" - quasi-religious experience.
• Femme fatale speaks directly, luring knight into a false sense of security.

Stanza 8

• Imagery: "Elfin grot" - enchanted, fairy-tale cave.
• Repetition: "Wild, wild eyes" - emphasizes her otherworldly nature.
• Shift (Volta): Knight realizes he is under a spell.

Stanza 9

• Repetition: "Dreamed" - foreshadows horror.
• Pathetic Fallacy: "On the cold hillside" - reflects knight's desolation.

Stanza 10-11

• Ominous Imagery: "Pale kings and princes too."
• Repetition of Adjectives: "Pale" - vitality lost.
• Onomatopoeia: "They cried" - victims' despair.
• Knight becomes another victim of the femme fatale.
• Pathetic Fallacy and Sibilance: "Starved lips in the gloam" - loss of hope.

Conclusion

• The knight is left desolate and entrapped.
• Ends on a dark, foreboding note: "And no birds sing."

Additional Information

• Encourages further study and offers additional resources, such as courses and model answers on www.firstrateachers.com.