In the poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, by John Keats, the imagination of a perfect woman for a knight is described alongside her longing for her and her story with her.
Keats describes how the knight somewhat lost in his life find himself “streamlined” by the idea of the fairy-like woman who seems fulfil his imagination. From there, the knight is described to lose himself in the “fairy-like” treatment he is being given by the girl to the point that he ignores advice from “pale kings and princes”. This is interesting as it writer is able to emphasise the extent to which the knight has fallen for this girl. Finally, the poem describes the knight being “lulled” to sleep by the girl before waking up not knowing where he is and without the girl.
In class, we were able to discuss the idea of “negative capability” and the ability of an individual to ignore the natural instinct to reach out for truth and reality. In the poem, Keats’s knight is blind to the mystery surrounding the girl and remains actively awed by her despite supposedly just meeting and knowing little of her. Throughout the poem, Keats uses this to demonstrate the will to break out of the “banal” life that the knight is living, “loitering through the meadows” and finding himself in a relatively sublime alternative reality. Through this, Keats may be trying to describe how temporary fascinating and transfixed mindsets can manifest and become an important piece of one’s life. It is interesting how Keats repetitively draws the readers attention to sinful connotations, describing woe-begone and repeating the line “O what can ail thee”. It is almost as if Keats is likening the banal to sickness which may be indicative of Keats’s life he was living, trapped in his life knowing that he is going to die, and perhaps the only way he could escape this certainty was to fill his life with a magical mysteries of imagination / sublime.
Additionally, the strict plot-line ballad structure used by Keats is able to emphasise the linearity and chronology of the emotions / actions experienced by the knight. The simple rhyming scheme and regular phrasing is rather contrasting to the dynamic plot, which may be indicative of the knight having the same aspirations and dreams throughout. The only difference is whether he is with the girl or not. Keats may have also made a subtle ode to this in the rhyming he used throughout. During periods of banal nature, Keats uses more “ing” rhyming which has a rather conclusive / strong affect to it, perhaps alluding to the knights finalised mind-set, being unable to dream beyond his everyday life. This is contrasted in the more loving and intimate stanzas in which Keats uses “our” or “ore” rhyming which seems more open and even leads to the mouth being opened up, perhaps representing the new / endless opportunities that meeting the girl has opened up fro him.
