Consider La Belle Dame sans Merci and To Autumn by John Keats

Consider La Belle Dame sans Merci and To Autumn by John Keats

John Keats was born in 1795 and died in 1821. He lived a short life as

he suffered from tuberculosis, and died in his early twenties. Keats

is one of the great Romantic poets of the early 19th century. Most of

his poetry was crammed into the last few years of his life, which is

why some of his poems relate death. He had a great love for nature,

which was always included in his poetry in some way.

He saw his mother and his brother die of TB when he was younger so

when he realised he too had the illness he knew what was in store. He

went to live in Italy because many people believed that the

temperature would help the illness. This is when are where he wrote

the two poems we will be comparing, le belle dams sand merci and to

autumn.

His poem ‘La Belle Dams sans Merci,’ meaning ‘A Beautiful Woman

without Merci,’ is about knight falling in love with an evil fairy.

Throughout the poem it describes the knight’s feelings and what he

sees. It ends very openly as we are not sure whether it all really

happened or whether it was a dream. The nature of the poem is very

deeply described and even the people included in the poem are compared

to nature, ‘she found me roots of relish sweet.’

The knight in the poem suffers from symptoms such as, ‘alone and

palely loitering,’ the paleness is a symptom that is a sign of TB so

maybe Keats is saying that he is the knight. Another symptom of tb

that keats would have had to live with is ‘with anguish moist and

fever dew,’ meaning he was in pain and coming down with a fever and is

clammy.

The atmosphere in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ changes throughout the

poem. At the beginning it seems very slow and depress...

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...does not rush, but

the rhythm in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ is slow and heavy and perhaps

suggests the weakness of the knight as if he had been robbed of all

his strength.

The rhyme of ‘To Autumn’ is regular and may reflect the regularity of

seasons throughout the year. Whereas, as the rhyme of ‘La Belle Dame

sans Merci’ is regular yet predictable. The repetition in the last

line of certain stanzas gives the poem a melancholic tone, ‘on a cold

hill’s side.’ Finally, in ‘To Autumn’ there is a positive attitude

towards death, as if it is known and acceptable to be a part of life

and as a part of life’s cycle. But in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ Keats

attitude to death is bitterer and not as acceptable. It is possible

that the lady in the poem is a metaphor for his illness which is

something which he came across and has stolen the rest of his life

from him.