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A structuralist analysis of John Keats ’s

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Submitted to:

Pro. Muhammad Saeed

English Department
Institute of Southern Punjab
Multan.

Submitted by:

Sohail Imran Khan

M.Phil English (2020-2022)
Semester : 1st
La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is one of the most read poem of John Keats . This
poem is in the form of a dialogue between two speakers. The first speaker is
unidentified and happens to pass-by the a knight who is in very sick and miserable
condition.

The poem consists of 12 stanzas. These two stanzas are divided into two parts.
First part consists of the first three stanzas where an unidentified traveller who is
passing by stops and asks the knight about his miserable condition.

Second part of the poem puts the limelight on the knight himself and is further
grouped into different units.

Unit 1, that includes stanzas 4-to-7, narrates the knight’s meeting with the
beautiful women and how he fell in love with her

Unit II, that includes stanza 8, offers the climax of the poem. It is moment when
the knight enters the supernatural “grotto” led by the lady.

Unit III, that includes of stanzas no. 9-to-12, describe the knight’s sleep and final
expulsion from the grotto. Stanzas X-XI narrate the knight’s dream in which he
sees all those powerful and mighty women like him who have been trapped by this
beautiful lady.

Finally the stanza XII repeats the words of the first stanza. It’s a common tradition
of the ballads and is called circular effect.

 Structure of the Poem

Keats has used the famous and commonly used ballad stanza form, however he has
made certain variations of his own. In this poem, poet has used a four line stanza
that is known as quatrain. A quatrain has rheme scheme of a b c & d.

In a typical ballads, the lines are not strictly regular but generally have eight
syllables. In most ballads, there are four stresses in lines 1 and 3 and three stresses
in lines 2 and 4 that are known as ballad metre.

In this poem, Keats breaks away with this tradition by giving only two two
stresses to the fourth line & hence making it shorter. He gives a maximum of only
four syllables. This abrupt ending gives a unique ending to the poem and it feels
like it's not the end and there is more to it.
 
Then there is question and answer form of the poem. This is a traditional part of
ballads. The poet has also employed iambic tetrameter metre.

 Literary Devices used in the Poem

Though Keats has broke away with certain traditions of a typical ballad, he has
also employed many of them. Here are some of the literary devices that the poet
has used in this poem.

Poet has made use of Assonance and Consonance. Assonance is repetition of the
vowel sounds in the same line whereas consonance is the repetition of consonants
in the same line. Example of assonance in this poem is he sound of /o/ in “So
haggard and so woe-begone”  while example of consonance is “And honey wild,
and manna-dew”

Keats is known for his use of imagery. So this poem is no exception as well. “She
took me to her Elfin grot” and “I saw pale kings and princes too” are the examples
of imagery in this poem.

Then there is frequent symbolism in the poem. Symbolism is the use of symbols to
signify idea and to create symbolic meanings that are different from their literal
meanings. The examples of symbolism in this poem are phrases “no birds
sing”,“lily on thy brow” and “fading rose”. These phrases symbolize the arrival of
death.

There are instances of use of metaphor in the poem as well. Metaphor is a figure
of speech that is used to create a comparison between two objects that are
unrelated to each other in their nature. For example, the poet says “I see a lily on
thy brow”. In this line, paleness of the face is compared with a lily flower.

 The tone of the poem

The tone of the poem is haunting and gives often ominous feelings. The poet has
created this effect by making use of frequent repetitions such as ‘And there she .. /
And there I ..’ in stanzas 8 and 9. The poet has also given circular effect by
repeating same four lines in the beginning and the end of the poem.