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La Belle Dame Sans Merci

La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a poem written in 1819 by John Keats, one of the most talented amongst the   famous English poets. John Keats, born into a rather poor family,   is mostly known to be a romantic poem, who let in his poems a greater part to imagination, dream and feelings (three items who are often linked) than to reality, reason or common sense. In this precise poem, one can see that, as a matter of fact, supernatural, dreams, and a kind of outer world (different from the one we know) are extremely present.   Keats took the title and the general plot of his poem to the French medieval author, Alain Chartier.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a really catchy poem and its verses are really and amazingly easy to remember, this is surely due to its nature. Indeed John Keats is here imitating the popular ballad, he uses rather simple words and sentences without obvious underlying meanings. It is   composed of twelve stanzas. The first three verses of each stanza have generally four feet and eight or nine syllables, yet, the last line of each has only four or five syllables. It strikes the ear when we read it and this arouses our attention. This poem is also extremely rich in musical qualities such as rhythm , repetitions   and melodious association of sonorities. For example the last stanza recalls the first one and gives to the whole poem a certain rhythm and it gives the feeling that a cycle has been achieved, a buckle has been closed.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci is at first sight a poem dealing with love, fairies, death, forlorn knight and despondency. Indeed, in this poem, John Keats tells us, in a wonderful and very delicate way, the story of a "knight in arms" (this is how the wretched wight is described in the first edition of this poem) that an anonymous speaker meet in the meads and with whom this speaker will have a conversation, during which the knight will answer to the puzzlement of the anonymous speaker. This anonymous speaker gives no information about...