La Belle Dame Sans Merci Themes
Love
"La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is John Keats's version of a medieval romance. It's about a knight who falls in love with a beautiful fairy lady. We immediately know that love is going to be a major the...
Women and Femininity
If the knight's experience of love and sex in "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is so negative, that we wonder what it must that say about women? Nothing good. The fairy lady in the poem enslaves the knig...
The Supernatural
"La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is part folk ballad, part romance, and part fairy tale. The lady's "wild" eyes suggest that maybe the knight isn't too far off when he calls her "a fairy's child." She ap...
Versions of Reality
The knight in "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" describes the dream he has towards the end of the poem, but the entire experience seems like a dream. Where does the dream really begin? Could the knight an...
Abandonment
In a nutshell, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is about being abandoned by the one you love. The knight gets abandoned and left on a "cold hill's side," even though he appears to be at death's door. The...