John Keats

Name

Literature 232

Section

Professor Mills

June 26 , 2009

Explicating La Belle Dame sans Merci

To explicate John Keats ' poem La Belle Dame sans Merci ' is to know the meaning of life through understanding beauty . The poem essentially tells the tale of a knight , who falls in love with a beautiful woman without mercy , otherwise known as an evil fairy . To understand and analyze the meaning of the knight 's tale , a look will be taken into each of the twelve stanzas to best define Keats ' words of wisdom

p To begin with , the title itself translates as the beautiful woman without mercy , thus setting the stage for the action within the poem itself . In stanza one , an anonymous speaker asks a palely loitering (line 2 ) knight (referred to in the poem as a wight ) what might be troubling him . The speaker , too , seems as troubled as the knight and cannot find justification for anyone to be loitering in such a place where the sedge has withered from the lake /and no birds sing (lines 3-4 . To the speaker , the knight 's presence , and condition , in such a place is mystifying

Then , in stanza two , the speaker tells the knight that his life should be a fulfilling time , as even the squirrel 's granary is full /and the harvest 's done (lines 7-8 . By stanza three , the speaker leans in closely to examine the knight , noting that the knight is symbolically withered like a fading rose (line 11 ) and his brow...