La Belle Dame Sans Merci Poem Analysis Line By Line

La belle dame sans merci.

La belle dame sans merci poem analysis line by line. La belle dame sans merci is a ballad by john keats one of the most studied and highly regarded english romantic poets. La belle dame sans merci is a french phrase meaning the lady without mercy. The first three stanzas comprise the questions raised by the poet to the knight. The twelve stanzas consist of three tetrameter lines.

O what can ail thee knight at arms alone and palely loitering. Although la belle dame sans merci is quoted in full below you can also read the poem here at poetry foundation. La belle dame sans merci is a remarkably evocative poem attaining subtle effects of mood and music in the short space of forty eight lines. La belle dame sans merci analysis.

Summary la belle dame sans merci the woman is beautiful but merciless keats s title which he got from a 15 th century courtly love poem by alain chartier la belle dame sans mercy provides a clue to the poem s plot. In the poem a medieval knight recounts a fanciful romp in the countryside with a fairy woman la belle dame sans merci which means the beautiful lady without mercy in french that ends in cold horror. La belle dame sans merci is a ballad a medieval genre revived by the romantic poets. The poem la belle dame sans merci written by john keats is a conversation in verse between the poet and a knight who fell in love with a lady but she left him.

The poem comprises 12 stanzas and has a rhyme scheme abcb. The shortening of the fourth line in each stanza of keats poem makes the stanza seem a self contained unit gives the ballad a deliberate and slow movement and is pleasing to the ear. The sedge has withered from the lake and no birds sing. O what can ail thee knight at arms so haggard and so woe begone.