John Keats\u2019s ballad, \u201cLa Belle Dame Sans Merci,\u201d draws upon inspiration from Medieval romances and refashions the ideas that many medieval poets provided by including ideology that appealed to British citizens in the early nineteenth-century. I argue that Keats\u2019s depiction of the beautiful faery lady is meant to represent foreigners, or those that are believed to be \u201cOther,\u201d and who are not described as being real English citizens. Through the use of sexual innuendos, the refrain of the opening stanza in the final stanza of the poem, and the musical quality of the ballad, the knight in Keats\u2019s poem points out the problems that can arise when a man falls for the seductive charms of a beautiful, foreign woman. Thus, Keats, through the voice of the knight, suggests that the coupling of good Englishmen with foreign women is unacceptable, as it will taint the pure British bloodlines that the aristocracy has done their best to maintain. As a result, xenophobic ideology is expressed in Keats\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
The love affair between the knight and the faery lady is most clearly implied when the knight says: \u201cShe looked at me as she did love,\/ And made sweet moan.\/ I set her on my pacing steed,\/ And nothing else saw all day long\u201d (l. 19-22). While the knight could be talking about placing her on his horse, I argue that the knight is actually using the term \u201csteed\u201d as a euphemism for his penis. The lines that surround the word \u201csteed\u201d support this notion, as the knight claims that his beloved \u201clooked at [him] as she did love.\u201d The love that the knight is referring to is not just the feeling, but rather the act of love-making, or sex, itself. The knight also claims that his beloved released a \u201csweet moan,\u201d which would suggest that she was actively participating and finding some enjoyment in their sexually illicit affair. Their affair continued \u201call day long\u201d and the knight became captivated by her \u201cfaery song\u201d (l. 24). The poem mirrors the beautiful lady\u2019s faery song, as it is a ballad, and thus has a musical quality to it. The rhyme scheme, which follows an ABCB rhyme, is catchy and rolls off the tongue, as it has the repeated B-line rhyme. The repetition of this line allows the poem to become stuck in the minds of readers, much like how the faery lady has become stuck in the mind of the knight.<\/p>\n
The knight tells the speaker that he became enthralled by the beautiful faery lady, and at the end of their day together, the knight states: \u201cAnd sure in language strange she said\u2014\/ \u2018I love thee true\u2019\u201d (l. 27-28). Special attention should be paid to the knight\u2019s choice of using the words \u201clanguage strange\u201d to describe the way that his beloved spoke to him. The knight points out his beloved\u2019s \u201cOtherness\u201d to the readers when he calls her language strange, as he implies that she is speaking something other than English. He also describes her home as being an \u201cElfin grot\u201d and claims that they met each other \u201cin the meads,\u201d which indicates that they are in a place that is totally dominated by nature and has remained untouched by the modern world (l. 13-29). Therefore, one can conclude that the woman in this poem is not an Englishwoman, but rather someone who comes from a different country and culture, and is thus unworthy of being with an Englishman.<\/p>\n
The knight\u2019s participation in a love affair with the faery lady turns out to be utterly disastrous for him, as he is filled \u201cWith anguish moist and fever-dew,\/ . . . \u201cAnd [he awakes] and [finds himself] here,\/ On the cold hill\u2019s side\u201d completely alone (l. 10-44). The love that the faery lady claimed to share with the knight is made false and unviable. She is thus depicted as nothing more than a wicked seductress whose only aim was to harm him. Finally, the knight finishes his woeful tale by telling the speaker: \u201cAnd this is why I sojourn here,\/ Alone and palely loitering,\/ Though the sedge is withered from the lake,\/ And no birds sing\u201d (l. 45-48). The use of this refrain is significant, as it draws a connection between the question that the speaker poses at the beginning of the poem and the warning that the knight is trying to share with him about the untrustworthiness of foreign individuals. The implication of the sickly knight\u2019s description of a barren landscape with a \u201cwithered sedge\u201d and \u201cno birdsong\u201d is this: the coupling between an Englishman and a foreign woman should not be encouraged or desired, as their union will not result in a fruitful marriage. An heir is not produced and the Englishman is left alone and miserable, without anyone to carry on his name or title. Keats\u2019s Romantic poem acts as a great segue into Victorian poetry, as the Victorians cared deeply about Empire building and ensuring the continuation of pure British bloodlines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Keats\u2019s ballad, \u201cLa Belle Dame Sans Merci,\u201d draws upon inspiration from Medieval romances and refashions the ideas that many medieval poets provided by including ideology that appealed to British citizens in the early nineteenth-century. I argue that Keats\u2019s depiction of the beautiful faery lady is meant to represent foreigners, or those that are believed … Continue reading Save a Steed, Ride a Knight<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4744,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4744"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}