In the student's efforts to compose his own essay, he may
wish to note that there have been two popular interpretations of "La Belle Dame sans
Merci." One is that the lady is a person who is the object of the knight's love, and
the other is that the "lady/dame" is the metaphysical concept of beauty. In either
case, however, the knight is helpless in his faithfulness to his love, for the more one
embraces feelings of love and beauty, the more desolate and painful mundane life
becomes.
Keats's narrative poem, which is written in ballad
form, is arranged as a dialogue as the speaker is unidentified in the first twelve
lines. When the question "O what can ail thee?" is asked, the reader's knowledge of
chivalric legend and lore points to love since a lily pallor and faded rose point cannot
relate to the other two allegiances of a knight, his allegiance to God and to his
lord.
However, the knight does not describe a woman; it is
a faery that he loves: "She took me to her elfin grot," and held him "in thrall." This
mythical spell placed on the heroic figure of a knight has caused the hillside to be
cold and the sedge withered. Only when the spell is broken can the land be
fertile.
Because this "Belle Dame sans Merci" is a faery,
many interpret her as the concept of beauty or art. And, thus, is the plight of the
artist who must live in the world of art or suffer the disappointment and desolation of
the mundane. Certainly, this idea can be related to many musicians who, while delighted
as they play their instruments, are often disillusioned or unhappy when not engaged in
their music, seeking something to cure their "blues," and it is this despondence and
unhealthy condition that causes their deaths--the "sans merci."
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