“La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is a poem about the world of imagination. The speaker describes a lonely knight who tries to escape reality by creating his own world. Keats shows the knight to be “haggard and woe-begone” in a place where no birds sing and the harvest is done. At this point, the speaker in the poem is an outside observer commenting on the wretched state the knight is in. After line 13, however, the knight assumes the speaker position and describes an imaginary world in which he escapes the lonely and sad conditions described in lines 1-12.
In order to fill this void in his life, the knight imagines a world where all his dreams and desires can be fulfilled. He meets a beautiful woman who initially takes away all of his former depression. He now assumes a sense of power and belonging. The knight appears to be in control of the scene and is able to assert himself the way he would like to in reality: he “made a garland for her head” and “set her on [his] pacing stead;” the woman returns his gestures with love and finds for him roots of relish sweet, wild honey, and manna dew. This situation seems too perfect to actually exist and perhaps suggests that the knight may have been rejected by the love of his life at some point and is now using his dream to compensate that misfortune. The speaker makes it obvious that the world the knight is currently in is imaginary by describing the girl as “a faery’s child” who speaks a strange tongue (yet the knight can still understand her).
The knight’s position of control soon changes. As the mystic woman “lulls [him] to sleep,” she takes away all of the power and security his little world gave him. The knight dreams about kings and warriors that warn him about La Belle Dame, who has him “in thrall.” The kings appear to be lifeless and “death-pale,” suggesting that they were ruined by the woman as well. The dream is a revelation that La Belle Dame, who represents imagination, does not improve the situation. The knight thought that he could escape his loneliness by creating a new world, but when his own dreams fail him, he realizes that he cannot stay in this state forever. Despite the continued loneliness and gloom of the cold hill side, the knight continues to stay there and accept reality the way it is. The last four lines of the poem repeat the description of the depressing surroundings, but this time, the speaker is the knight rather than an outside observer.
Keat’s poem is a literary ballad whose title is based on a long French poem “La Bell Dame Sans Mercy” (written in 1424 by Alain Chartier). Merci is a French word that means pity or mercy (as a feminine noun) and thanks (as a masculine noun). A literary ballad imitates a folk ballad, a poem that tells a story with a popular or common theme. This type of poetry is typically sung aloud, but this particular poem is meant to be read. There are several interpretations on the meanings of this poem. The first is the tragedy of unrequited love. The knight, who probably had been rejected once before, relives this rejection through his dream. The emotional pains are accompanied by physical illness, as he can only sit lifeless and depressed on the hillside. Another interpretation is the situation of impossible love. In this case, the knight cannot be with the woman because one is human and the other, a fairy. Similarly, the code of chivalry usually involves a knight yearning for a woman who is above him in social ranking and can thus never be with him. The third speculation on the poem has to do with the author himself. In 1818, Keats began showing signs of tuberculosis, a disease which eventually took his life. He could be using the knight as a conduit for his feelings of loneliness and feverishness, and the beautiful woman would represent the life that was slowly leaving him.
