La Belle Dame sans Merci Analysis

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John Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci” parallels the predicament of a dying knight with the final moments of his life, and love for Fanny Brawne. Keats’s obsession with willing suspension of disbelief and shadows of the imagination are exemplified in the ballad. The poem displays romanticism with hyperbole describing each character. Keats’s poem, “La Belle Dame sans Merci”, is explicated through the structure, tone, hyperbole, and parallels to his love life and final moments; all of these instances in this poem relate to romanticism.

Romanticism, or the Romantic period, was a movement that focused on art, writing, and development of the human mind. This revolution started in Europe and lasted from approximately 1800 to 1850. This period in history was a response to the Enlightenment and scientific explanations as to how the world came to be. Even though Romanticism was mostly shown in fine arts, this period is also related with radicalism due to farfetched thoughts of human emotion. The time period allowed people to express new emotions, such as lust, terror, and despair. These ideas are embodied in the work of John Keats.

From the beginning of the poem, Keats captures historical moments and parallels his own life. The title itself is in French and roughly translates to “The beautiful lady without mercy”. Without knowing what the title meant ahead of time, the poem would not makes as much sense to the reader. In fact, the title is an allusion to an already-written poem by Alain Chartier. Chartier’s poem depicts a medieval romance with fairytale elements. Chartier’s poem was an inspiration for Keats to add feudal components to his poem. Keats also sets the poem up with structure.

“La Belle Dame sans Merci” is d...

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...y was “The last dream I ever dreamt On the cold hill side” (Keats 35-36). These lines are direct parallels to Keats because the word choice, such as cold and dreamt, are relatable to death and the aftermath of passing away. The lines show Keats’s mood change, from delight, to depression, and eventually, to death.

In the poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci”, Keats explicates the work through structure, tone, hyperbole, and the parallels to love and death, relating to romanticism. In this way, Keats was anticipating post-Romantic strategies of expression. Keats was able to implement self-expression and change characters into real figures. By using the characterization of the knight as a convincing surrogate for his own feelings, Keats uses Romantic themes, such as questioning oneself, the paradox between love and death, and the definition of morals to a person.

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