Friday, December 21, 2012

What is the central idea of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"?

"The Belle Dame sans Merci" means, in French, the beautiful lady without mercy (pity). The central idea of the poem is that beauty and our own illusions about it can deceive us.


The knight in the poem comes across a woman, saying she was "full beautiful--a faery's child." He thinks she loves him, but this is his subjective interpretation of events. She looks at him as if "she did love / and made sweet moan." She also, "in language strange" says she loved him, or so the knight wants to believe.


In fact, beguiled by her beauty, the garlands she makes for him and the honey and manna she gives him, the knight misinterprets the beautiful woman's intentions. She is not in love with him, but has lured him into her trap, so that she can hold him in "thrall" or captivity, like the other ghostly knights he sees.


Keats says here that beauty is a trap that can hold us in thrall.

No comments:

Post a Comment

What was the device called which Faber had given Montag in order to communicate with him?

In Part Two "The Sieve and the Sand" of the novel Fahrenheit 451, Montag travels to Faber's house trying to find meaning in th...