INTRODUCTION

TO LITERATURE AND CULTURE I /5

Kiss Attila
Institute of English and American Studies
akiss@lit.u-szeged.hu
544260

I.
O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
II.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
III.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
IV.
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.
V.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
20
VI.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
John Keats (1795–1821).
”La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
Ballad
VII.
She found me roots of relish sweet, 25
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
“I love thee true.”
5
VIII.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore, 30
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
10
IX.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d 35
On the cold hill’s side.
X.
15 I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!” 40
XI.
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
XII.
And this is why I sojourn here, 45
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
 I First level of meaning

A tragic love story between a mounted soldier and a strange,

beautiful, other-worldly woman: however, we cannot be satisfied
with this level, because we still do not have an explanation for
many things. Why is there a feverish „lily” on the cheeks of the
knight-at-arms? Why does the lady weep? Why don’t they stay
together? Why do they go into a cave?
 Exercise in Interpretation / 1
Steps of interpretation: a process in which we are gradually
depriving the text of its arbitrariness, we find explanation for
every piece of information, and finally we are able to build up
the coherent possible world of the LWA in our consciousness.

1. Formal characteristic features

2. Worlds
3. Relevant attributes and their connotative meanings
4. Levels of meaning
 1. Formal characteristic features
The form and the general appearance of the text
already precondition us for reading, influence our horizon of
expectations.

- framed structure

- 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 composition
 2. Worlds

On the basis of this structure and the dominant agents in the

units, we can also establish that each unit represents a different
world, and there is change, movement in between these worlds.

W3 ---- W1 ---- W2 ---- W3

 3. Relevant attributes and their
connotative meanings
• Knight-at-Arms: mounted soldier in medieval times, protects his feudal lord and ladies;
he must be skilled in military exercises as well as various forms of art: singing, writing
poetry, playing chess; he has a sick lily and a fading rose on his face; he rides a horse;
he puts the lady on his horse and gives her four kisses.
• The Lady: supernatural, a “faery’s child”, wild, she speaks a strange language, she
bends, moans, and moves rhythmically, she comes from a different world, she gets a
bracelet and a garland from the knight, she takes him to her elfin grot where she finds
him supernatural food, but before their love could be consummated, she weeps and
lulls the knight asleep.
• The horse: the horse is associated here with rhythm since it is a pacing steed, and we
might also associate it with classical literature, mythology and the figure of Pegasus.
• The narrator: we do not get to know anything about him except that he has a very
friendly, warm attitude to the knight.
 II Second level of meaning
The poet receives inspiration, he puts inspiration and technique
together, that is, the Knight puts the Lady on the Horse, and thus
theme and rhythm, topic and technique, inspiration and poetic
talent are united.
The poem is a metaphorical account of the process of poetic
creation: it tells us how a poem is conceived. Nevertheless, we
still do not understand several elements in the poem. Why is the
lily sick? Why does the poet have nightmares? Who is the
narrator?
 III Third level of meaning
The lily is a traditional symbol of purity, innocence, virginity. It is a customary and almost
mandatory attribute of the Virgin Mary in medieval and renaissance paintings of the Annunciation.
As an attribute it expresses that the Knight, the Poet had been innocent, a “virgin” poet before the
encounter with the Lady-Muse, so the poem is about the birth of the first poem by the romantic
poet. The rose, a traditional symbol of love on his face is fading now, so the love-encounter is
over, the Muse has been lost, but it is the fate of the romantic poet to have a never-ending desire
to escape from the actual reality and go back to the world of imaginative creation, the world of the
Muse. Thus, at this level of meaning, we can interpret the text as a poetic account of the first
artistic production of the poet, as well as a poetic representation of the typically romantic
understanding of the fate, the destiny of the artist. In romantic poetry the artist is often
represented as a social outcast who is not understood by the environment, and commutes
incessantly between the world of reality and the world of artistic imagination. The French title
alludes to a traditional image of the “femme fatal” type of Muse, the fatal attraction of the world of
creation, which is internationally present in world literature.
Also, Keats relied on a French source: assumed to have been written in 1424, La Belle Dame
sans Mercy is a French poem on courtly love written by Alain Chartier.
 IV Fourth level of meaning

If we add to this that the only thing we get to know about the
narrator is his friendly attitude to the Knight-Poet, we might
conclude that the Poet and the Narrator are two aspects of the
same mind, and the Poet is questioning himself about his own
tragic, artistic fate: the ballad is an internal dialogue by the poet
about the destiny of the romantic artist, and it can be finally
interpreted as an ars poetica of the poet.
 Another important element of figurative
language on the level of expression: METER
By meter, the rhythm or flow of the poetic line is established by the
systematic repetition and recurrence of UNITS, each unit consisting of an
identical arrangement of SYLLABLES.
Quantitative (classical) meter: the rhythm is based on the arrangement
of LONG and SHORT syllables (the duration of pronunciation is observed).
Qualitative meter: the rhythm is based on the arrangement of STRESSED
(accented) and UNSTRESSED (non-accented) syllables (the presence of
stress is observed).
ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC METER: BOTH the arrangement of accents AND
the number of syllables are observed.
 ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC METER

Foot type Style Stress pattern Syllable count

Iamb: -/ Iambic Unstressed + Stressed Two

Trochee: /- Trochaic Stressed + Unstressed Two

Spondee: // Spondaic Stressed + Stressed Two

Unstressed + Unstressed +
Anapest: --/ Anapestic Three
Stressed

Stressed + Unstressed +
Dactyl: /-- Dactylic Unstressed Three
 ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC METER
If the line has only one foot, it is called a monometer; two feet,
dimeter; three is trimeter; four is tetrameter; five is pentameter; six is
hexameter, seven is heptameter and eight is octameter.
The language of Shakespearean sonnets is rhyming iambic
pentameters:
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
- / - / - / - / - / : five iambs
The language of Shakespearean drama is unrhymed iambic
pentameters: BLANK VERSE
 ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC METER
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
/ - / - / - /
In the forests of the night;
/ - / - / - / : trochaic tetrameters (the last foot is incomplete)

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.

- - / - - / - - / - - / : anapestic tetrameter

Think but one thought of me up in the stars.

/ - - / - - / - - / : dactylic tetrameter (the last foot is incomplete)

I set her on my pacing steed

- / - / - / - / : iambic tetrameter