Literary Terms in "La Belle Dame sans Merci"

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Title

“La Belle Dame sans Merci” can be translated as “The Lovely Lady Without Pity.” Keats is thought to have taken this title from the medieval poet Alain Chartier. Keats also uses the phrase “La Belle Dame sans Merci” in his poem “Eve of St. Agnes” when Porphyro and Madeline meet:

"Awakening up, he took her hollow lute-
Tumultuous – and, in chords that tenderest be,
He played an ancient ditty, long since mute,
In Provence called “Le belle dame sans merci”… (Harmon 24)

Incremental Repetition

A device used in poetry in which a line is repeated in a changed context or with minor changes in the repeated part.

"Oh what can ail thee, Knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering?”
Oh what can ail thee, Knight at arms,
So haggard and so woe begone?" (1-4)

Allusions

1. “For sidelong would she bend and sing / A faery’s song-” (23-24): The woman sings a song that has a mesmerizing effect over the man, much like the Sirens from Homer’s Odyssey.
2. “manna dew” (26): The woman feeds the knight manna dew much as God fed the wondering Israelites with a dew which solidified into manna or food.

Ambiguity

1. “And sure in language strange she said” (27): The knight thinks that he is sure of what the woman says even though her language is strange or foreign to him.
2. “And there I shut her wild wild eyes” (31): The woman’s eyes are described as wild, yet readers do not know if the term “wild” suggests joy or sadness, excitement or fear, sweetness or malice.

Diction

Keats chooses dark and mysterious words for his poem. During the romantic period, most poets claimed to understand the intricate workings of nature. Keats's purposeful use of mystifying and unusual terms highlights his belief that nature and her wiles are too complex to be understood by mortals.

Framing Method

“Alone and palely loitering? / The sedge has withered from the Lake / And no birds sing!” (1-3) and “Alone and palely loitering; / Though the sedge is withered from the Lake /And no birds sing-” (46-48): The beginning and ending of the poem mirror each other with similar features and word choices which contributes to a sense of closure or completeness. The poem has come full cycle.

Irony

“I saw their starv’d lips in the gloam / With horrid warning gaped wide” (41-42): The woman tempts her prey with enticing food, but her sustenance leaves them drained and starved. In fact, she is like a parasite eating off of them.

Juxtaposition

1. “With anguish moist and fever dew, /And on thy cheeks a fading rose /Fast withereth too-” (10-12): The rose is a traditional symbol for beauty and dew represents dawn and rebirth. In this poem however, the “fever dew” and “fading rose” represent illness and death.
2. “And there I shut her wild wild eyes / With kisses four. / And there she lulled me asleep” (31-33): The knight shuts the woman’s eyes with kisses, but the knight is the one who falls asleep.

Metaphors

1. “The sedge has withered from the Lake”(3): There is no greenery or life during the autumnal months.
2. “And no birds sing!” (4): Birds are associated with spring and rebirth.
3. “The Squirrel's granary is full” (7): Animals store food before hibernating for the winter.
4. “And the harvest's done.” (8): The harvest is associated with the end of autumn.
5. “I set her on my pacing steed” (21): By placing the woman on his horse, his symbol of power, the knight is surrendering his power to the woman.

Parallel Structure

“Her hair was long, her foot was light / And her eyes were wild-” (15-16)

Repetition

“I saw pale Kings and Princes too / Pale warriors, death pale were they all;” (37-38): The repetition of “pale” signifies that all of the men suffer the same fate.

Symbols

1. “lily” (9): The lily is a traditional symbol for death.
2. “dew” (10): In the poem, dew represents perspiration from a fever.
3. “rose” (11): The rose is a traditional symbol for beauty.
4. “I made a garland for her head / and bracelets too and fragrant Zone” (17): These garlands represent courtly love.
5. “She found me roots of relish sweet / And honey wild and manna dew” (25-26): These immortal foods represent the sexual pleasures with which she entices the knight.
6. “She found me roots of relish sweet / And honey wild and manna dew” (25-26): Sweetness represents deception. Sweet foods encourage the eater to partake obsessively, but this consumption is unhealthy. The eater becomes obsessed with the sweetness and therefore enslaved by its captivating pleasure.
7. “elfin grot” (29): The woman’s cave represents the Underworld where lost souls are left in eternal torment.
   

Tone

The first two stanzas of the poem are full of anxiety and uncertainty. The ambiguous speaker wants to know what plagues the knight. The third to eighth stanzas are emotional and intense, two predominant characteristics of ballads. These stanzas describe the knight and woman’s meeting, as well as the mystifying attraction that appears to develop between them. At the beginning of the ninth stanza, there is a significant change in tone as the knight recounts his nightmare. The ninth through eleventh stanza develop a haunting and disturbing tone. When the knight awakes at the end of the eleventh stanza, his dream has left him dazed and confused. The last stanza matter-of-factly answers the first stanza’s speaker’s question while maintaining a tone of ambiguity and mystery.