Classic Medieval Romanticism in "La Belle Dame sans Merci"

Romanticism can be broadly defined as that which is `the fabulous, the extravagant, the fictitious and the unreal'. The words Romantic and Romanticism were applied to or used for a literary trend in English literature of the last quarter of 18th and mid-nineteenth century to refer to various tendencies. Later the term Romanticism was applied to `resurgence of extinct and emotion' which could not be suppressed by the `rationalism' of the 18th century and a low key revolt could be heard in some literary works. Some romanticists are "amorous of the far", they try to escape from the familiar or real world of sufferings, pain and mutability to an imaginary world. In his effort to create a world of Beauty or a utopia a romantic poet may move from "the most trivial literary fantasy to the exalted mysticism."

To Wordsworth this experience is "that blessed and serene mood" in which "the burden of mystery" is lightened and he is able to see "into the life of things." Blake constantly lived "this visionary ecstasy" and felt that the "vegetable universe" is really a "shadow of that real world which is the Imagination."

John Keats once wrote that a poet could be certain of nothing except truth and beauty. He wrote, "With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration or rather obliterates all considerations." A case in point being his famous poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" which was written in April 1819. He took the title of the poem from `an early fifteenth century French poem by Alain Chartier. The phrase belongs to the terminology of the courtly love, and describes a beautiful lady without mercy, that is the sort of gracious kindness which prompts a woman to accept a lover's plea. "La Belle" is a literary b...

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...r the dream was true. Can't tell whether he has himself chosen to wander aimlessly in the desolated landscape or he has been punished for loving the lady without mercy. "Unlike the questioner who lives in the real time, with a past and future, the knight inhabits a wasteland more psychic, and exists in a timeless present progressing toward death..." (John Barnard).

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Bibliography:-

The Romantics (Second Edition)- edited by Shobhana Bhattacharaji. Doaba Publications.

The Romantic Imagination: Maurice Bawra

John Keats: The Odes edited by A.R. Weekes

A Preface to Keats- Cedric Watts

Keats: John Barnard

The Poetry of Keats: Brian Stone