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"La Belle Dame sans Merci" is a ballad produced by the English poet John Keats in 1819. The title was derived from the title of a 15th-century poem by Alain Chartier called La Belle Dame sans Mercy. Considered an English classic, the poem is an example of Keats' poetic preoccupation with love and death. Wikipedia
Analysis of La Belle Dame sans Merci
La Belle Dame sans Merci with its mysterious narrative and ethereal atmosphere, combines innocence and seduction in an unusual ballad form to produce a haunting story.
In one sense it's little more than man meets woman in the countryside, they have a fling and the man ends up dumped, by a lake. He doesn't know if he's been drugged or not but it certainly seems he has been intimate with this beautiful stranger.
It's up to the reader to fill in the details.
Perhaps this is why the poem is so successful in its portrayal of a relationship that came out of nowhere, progressed to a different dimension and had such a profound effect on the male, and probably the female too.
The reader is left hanging on, with a need to know more, thanks to the metrical pattern of the stanzas and the bizarre circumstances the man finds himself in.
And in certain sections of the poem there is the suggestion of a sexual liaison which is perhaps drug inspired. Notably, stanzas five and seven stand out, with mention of the man making garlands and bracelets and a fragrant girdle (Zone) whilst the woman made sweet moan. And later she finds sweet roots, honey wild and manna dew (manna is the food from heaven as stated in the Bible), most certainly the food of love.
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