La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Good morning! I've been too busy to post much the past few days, what with the aggressive laziness of vacation and preparations for FaerieCon. However, today I have a few empty hours before the festivities begin downstairs, so I thought it was a good time to get in some art!spam in keeping with this weekend's theme.
To begin, the poem up for discussion:
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
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.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
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.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan
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.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said-
‘I love thee true’.
She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed-Ah! woe betide!-
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
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!’
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Frank Dicksee
'La Belle Dame' has been on my mind quite a bit lately, as some of the themes it explores have appeared in the book I am currently writing. The conceit of this Keats poem, so beloved by the Pre-Raphaelites and their disciples, has always seemed rather suspect to me. Is the knight completely innocent, or did his conduct in some way provoke this 'faery child' into bewitching him? It is of course possible that she acted completely of her own volition with purely malicious intent, but I wonder...when faced with an entitled, chauvinistic, possibly aggressive man, how many women wouldn't take the option of casting a docility spell over him, if they possessed the ability to do so? 'But the warning ghosts!' you say. Yes, well...I suppose no man every made up excuses for a woman rejecting him, hmm? These are just my suppositions of course. I don't mean to take Keats to task, I think his poetry is lovely, but it is interesting to approach these things from something other than the traditional perspective.
John William Waterhouse
At any rate, however suspicious I am of the motivations of the characters in this poem, it must be admitted that it is a beautiful piece of writing, and it has inspired many artists to create some truly remarkable paintings. I couldn't settle on which ones to share in the post, so I decided to go ahead and post all of my favorites, along with one John Strudwick piece that isn't actually a La Belle Dame, but I feel like it's in the same family :)
Acrasia ~ John Melhuish Strudwick
(The inspiration for this painting is from Edmund Spenser's 'The Faerie Queene'.
The enchantress Acrasia is depicted in the 'Bower of Bliss' surrounded by handmaidens with a knight at her mercy.)
Henry Meynell Rheam
Arthur Hughes
Walter Crane
Frank Cadogan Cowper
To begin, the poem up for discussion:
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
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.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
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.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan
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.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said-
‘I love thee true’.
She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed-Ah! woe betide!-
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
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!’
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Frank Dicksee
'La Belle Dame' has been on my mind quite a bit lately, as some of the themes it explores have appeared in the book I am currently writing. The conceit of this Keats poem, so beloved by the Pre-Raphaelites and their disciples, has always seemed rather suspect to me. Is the knight completely innocent, or did his conduct in some way provoke this 'faery child' into bewitching him? It is of course possible that she acted completely of her own volition with purely malicious intent, but I wonder...when faced with an entitled, chauvinistic, possibly aggressive man, how many women wouldn't take the option of casting a docility spell over him, if they possessed the ability to do so? 'But the warning ghosts!' you say. Yes, well...I suppose no man every made up excuses for a woman rejecting him, hmm? These are just my suppositions of course. I don't mean to take Keats to task, I think his poetry is lovely, but it is interesting to approach these things from something other than the traditional perspective.
John William Waterhouse
At any rate, however suspicious I am of the motivations of the characters in this poem, it must be admitted that it is a beautiful piece of writing, and it has inspired many artists to create some truly remarkable paintings. I couldn't settle on which ones to share in the post, so I decided to go ahead and post all of my favorites, along with one John Strudwick piece that isn't actually a La Belle Dame, but I feel like it's in the same family :)
Acrasia ~ John Melhuish Strudwick
(The inspiration for this painting is from Edmund Spenser's 'The Faerie Queene'.
The enchantress Acrasia is depicted in the 'Bower of Bliss' surrounded by handmaidens with a knight at her mercy.)
Henry Meynell Rheam
Arthur Hughes
Walter Crane
Frank Cadogan Cowper