Tag: dream

Thoughts on "La Belle Dame"

Who has not tried to hold onto something that slipped away? This poem speaks in a mournful throb of something precious lost forever.

“La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is commonly translated as “The beautiful lady without pity/mercy”, although “thanks” is the literal translation of “merci”. I think the idea of ingratitude is actually far more interesting than pitilessness: her procession of devotees pay single-minded homage and yet she seemingly cares not…or does she?

The narrator speaks of her eyes twice: “Her hair was long,/her foot was light,/And her eyes were wild” and then, later, “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.” As described, there is a hint of regret in her eyes, of sadness for yet another lover abandoned. Is it because she feels more strongly for the narrator or that she is doomed to always lead her knights astray? This is the one moment in the poem where the coquette slips. If truly without pity, mercy or gratitude, why the lady’s sadness?

Though the poem seems straightforward, there are enigmatic layers within each stanza. He made her garlands of flowers as she sings to him faery songs, a traditional token of courtly love. She feeds him faery nourishment, “relish sweet,/And honey wild,/and manna dew“. Keats later references the “starv’d lips in the gloam” of the wraiths, an indication of lack of substance to her nourishment. It could also be read as love-starved. One common result of heartbreak in Romantic literature is wasting away from lack of love.

Keats did not originate the idea of “La Belle Dame” – it dates back to Medieval courtly love poetry. The theme of the beautiful faery creature who heedlessly breaks hearts is the mirror opposite of the lady who waits patiently at her tower window for her love or quietly pines away (see The Lady of Shalott).

Keats himself considered this poem dashed off: “I have for the most part dash’d of[f] my lines in a hurry – ” (Letter to George, Weds 21 April 1819). Nevertheless, it is considered one of the most classic English Romantic poems and was a great influence on the Pre-Raphaelites in particular (see paintings from previous post and sketch below by Dante Gabriel Rossetti).

For a far more scholarly interpretation of the sources of “La Belle Dame”:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/sym4int.htm

 Read more Keats and other Romantic poets at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/66

Poem by John Keats, post by me. All material copyright.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, 
  Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is withered 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 lilly 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 looked 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.
And there we slumbered on the moss, 
  And there I dreamed, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dreamed 
  On the cold hill side. 
I saw pale kings, and princes too, 
  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cried--"La belle Dame sans merci 
  Hath thee in thrall!" 
I saw their starved 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 withered from the lake, 
  And no birds sing.  
 
Poem by John Keats. 
Paintings by Frank Dicksee, Frank Cadogan Cowper, John William Waterhouse
For a great analysis of the poem, read here: 
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/belle.html

Letter from my Mother – Libraries and Dream ‘Spanses

My mother wrote this in response to my post: The Library’s Whispers . It was so beautifully written, I could not relegate it to a mere comments page; it deserves a post of its own. 
And though she says I was ‘forcibly deposited’, I cannot consider my soul misspent when it’s clear that mine was attracted to this century by a shining soul such as hers.
~~~
My darling daughter was somehow abducted by aliens and forcibly deposited in the late twentieth century.  For that I willingly apologize, as who was to know that her soul was to be misspent here? Alas, how could I not also traverse this century?
Anna has a “blithe spirit”, a heightened “sense and sensibility”, often misspent on the hordes of common creatures of earth. I should rather like to put her in a library such as she has described and have her close…not only to visit that vast ‘spanse of library knowledge and dream works, but to daily visit that soul and spirit that is Anna.
My wish for her is to break the boundaries of common understanding and discover a life where she is free to write and enchant generations of young women who share the same aching desire to escape some of the harsh mundanity of this world.
She has so much to offer and it is her “obligation, nay, her duty” (finger pointed in the air) to interpret the goodness of the world and to discover the romantics of the 21st Century that exist in us all.
~~~