A Ballad a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with a simple and dramatic action. The ballads, in general, used to deal with love, death, the supernatural, or a combination of these. Two distinguishable characteristics of the ballad are incremental repetition and the ballad stanza. Incremental repetition repeats one or more lines with small but significant variations that advance the action. The ballad stanza is four lines; commonly, the first and third lines contain four feet or accents, the second and fourth lines contain three feet. Ballads often open abruptly, present brief descriptions, and use concise dialogue. The folk ballad is usually anonymous and the presentation impersonal. The literary ballad deliberately imitates the form and spirit of a folk ballad. The Romantic poets were attracted to this form, as Longfellow with "The Wreck of the Hesperus," Coleridge with the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (which is longer and more elaborate than the folk ballad) and Keats with "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (which more closely resembles the folk ballad).
The title "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" means "the beautiful woman without mercy." It's the title of an old French court poem by Alain Chartier. ("Merci" in today's French is of course "thank you".) Keats probably knew a current translation, which was supposed to be by Chaucer.
"La Belle Dame sans Merci" is very easy to interpret by looking it at the narrative level. An unidentified passerby (may be the poet) asks the knight what is wrong. The knight answers that he has been in love with and abandoned by a beautiful lady. Keats here is imitating the folk ballad. Therefore the language is simple. Focus is on a singular event. The poet brings a minimal detail about the characters, and makes no judgments. Some details are realistic and familiar, others are unearthly and strange. As a result, the poem creates a sense of mystery which has intrigued many readers.
The poem revolves around the narration of an anonymous speaker. He seems to have come upon the knight accidentally. From his description, the condition of the knight is revealed accurately and factually. The poem begins with a question by this speaker. First, the questions focus on the physical condition of the knight. Next, they describe both the knight's physical state and his emotional state. Most traditional ballads have the same status of beginning, that is with the questions. The repetition of the questions with a slight variation in the subsequent stanzas is called incremental repetition and is a characteristic of the folk ballad.
This speaker could never find a satisfactory reason for the knight's "loitering" in such a barren spot, where the grass is "wither'd" and no birds sing. However, it has to be noted that Even in this wasteland, the squirrel's winter storage is full, and the harvest has been completed. This shall be considered as the alternate solutions the knight could just choose to solve his problems.
Our poet associates knight's physical appearance and mental state with death and with nature. Nature becomes a metaphor here. Knight’s pallor is compared first to the whiteness of a lily, then to a rose; the rose is "fading" and quickly "withereth." The lily, of course, is a traditional symbol of death; the rose, a symbol of beauty. The knight's misery is suggested by the "dew" or perspiration on his forehead.
The knight's narration shall be analysed by dividing it into three episodes. First one consists of the knight's meeting and involvement with the lady. The story reaches its climax, when he goes with her to the "elfin grot". His sleep and expulsion from the mysterious reality he lived through becomes the third part. In the end, the poem returns to where it started. Thus the poem has a circular movement.
The knight’s confession that he fell in love with a strange but beautiful lady takes the reader to a mysterious world. The lady is a ‘faery’s child’. At the same time she is wild. Definitely, she is not an ordinary woman. However, all these are the views of the knight. He is quite obviously fascinated by the strange lady and can never help his eyes escape from her charming beauty.
Things become more mysterious when she serves him strange food, and when she speaks strange language. The knight is then lead to a tiny cave. Here, she becomes a woman with unexplorable mind and behaviour. She cried! but for what? why? She might be trying the tricks to trap the knight. He kisses away her tears.
But, when he falls off to sleep, in the dream, he sees kings and warriors. They warn him that she is a beautiful lady, but has no pity. The men he dreams about are all men of power and achievement (kings, princes, and warriors). Their paleness associates them both with the loitering pale knight and with death; in fact, we are told that they are "death-pale." The description of her former lovers, with their starved lips and gaping mouths, is chilling.
We can see that the night is in a quest. He is totally confused due to the experiences he had. He cannot leave that place without getting an answer.
“And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering.......”
He plans to spent there for some time. The repetition of
".......the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing"
also reinforces the sense of no movement in connection with the knight. Ironically, although he is not moving physically, he has "moved" or been emotionally ravaged by his dream or vision.
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