La Belle Dame Sans Merci Analysis

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
    Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
    And no birds sing.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
    So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
    And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
    With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
    Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads
    Full beautiful, a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
    And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed,
    And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
    A faery's song.

I made a garland for her head,
    And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
    And made sweet moan.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
    And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
    I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot,
    And there she gaz'd and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes--
    So kiss'd to sleep.

And there we slumber'd on the moss,
    And there I dream'd, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dream'd
    On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,
    Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd--"La belle Dame sans merci
    Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
    With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
    On the cold hill side.

And this is why I sojourn here
    Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
    And no birds sing.

.: :.

This poem is about seduction and rejection.
The Knight is wandering alone and ill on a cold hill side 'a lily on thy brow' represents the knights state as a lily was the flower representing death. So the knight is alone and dying in the winter on a hillside. He then tells his story. He met a beautiful fairy on the hill, he was entranced by her and made her gifts, she brought him under her spell and brought him sweet drinks (potions?). He then dreams of many good men who are starved, pale and dying who warn him of the trap he is walking into - unrequited love - he then wakes up to find himself abandoned and so is wandering alone and dying on the 'cold hill side' just like the men in his dream.

| Posted on 2008-06-13 | by a guest

.: Muhammad Ali Amjad :.

I Am Muhammad Ali Amjad of class 9th-c
From Lahore grammer school pakistan
My id is mail me if you need anything else
Lines 1 – 12
The ballad consists of two parts of dialogue, each uninterrupted by the other and each uncouched by the normal story-telling mechanisms for identifying speakers ("I said," "he said," etc.). Because of this, the identity of the first speaker, whose part is completed in the first twelve lines, remains cryptic. Though he (or, it could equally be argued, she) reveals the identity of the other (the "knight-at-arms"), the first speaker says nothing, at least directly, about himself. He does, however, give plenty of information about the situation of the poem. The time is late autumn, the annual grasses having already "wither'd" and the birds having departed on their winter migration. The place, one can infer, is not always as forbidding as it seems to be now — its desolation is simply due to the time of year. There has been a "harvest," but it has ended. There is latent life present around the two characters: "the squirrel's granary is full." Therefore, if the setting symbolizes the knight's emotional desolation, one must understand it as a function of an individualized circumstance: of a very specific but not necessarily permanent condition. Come spring, after all, the cycle of the harvest will begin again. Yet, this seems little consolation to the knight the speaker describes. He is "alone and palely loitering," "so haggard and so woebegone." His pallor is described metaphorically in terms of a "lily" on his brow and a "fading rose" on his cheek. Further, he appears physically ill, "moist" from the "fever" of some "anguish." Though through these observations the speaker has already foreshadowed the reasons for the knight's grim condition, the form's rhetoric demands the question be asked: "O what can ail thee?" A knowledge of chivalric lore should prompt the correct guess. Of a knight's three profound allegiances — to his God, his lord, and his lady — only the last would be described in terms of lily-pallor and a faded rose.
Lines 13 – 24
The story's twist occurs in the first stanza of the knight's speech. Though a "lady" was bound to figure into the poem, that she is a "faery's child" changes the expectations of the tale's outcome and causes readers to reinterpret the nature of the knight's desolation. Literature and myth are filled with examples of humans who fall in love with gods, and with little exception, such relationships bode disastrously for the mortal party. Particularly in that area of mythology dealing with fairies or fairy-like creatures, humans who become enamored of fairies, elves, pixies, and the like generally suffer extreme emotional consequences once their affairs with the capricious beings have ended. Having loved an immortal, these hapless humans discover that mere mortal beauty — which can include not only human lovers but also life itself — will no longer do. Based on thse conventions, readers understand immediately that this is the knight's fate, and through his descriptions of his fairy-love's beauty, readers see the caprice that brings on his doom. In keeping with fairies' quick and unpredictable behavior, "her foot was light." Her long hair suggests the sensual nature of such creatures, who in lore are given to continual pleasures, and "her eyes were wild." The knight confesses he was taken in by his lady's fair

| Posted on 2008-05-13 | by a guest