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‘In what ways can ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ be said to be a Gothic poem? What does it tell us about the nature of the Gothic? How useful is the concept of the Gothic to our understanding of the poem?’
‘The Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is a Gothic poem, and exhibits many conventions of that genre and its predecessor, Romanticism. The first of these is that it is set in medieval times- an age which Gothic poets looked back on as one of adventure and excitement, and therefore a perfect backdrop for the scandalous excitement of Gothic literature. ... ”
The main character is a “knight-at-arms”, at once an imposing figure, and his tale begins as one of chivalric romance, common subject matter for the Gothic and especially Romantic genres. Also, the poem is in the form of a Trope, a story within a story, shared by other works of Gothic literature such as Coleridge’s ‘Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner’ and Mary Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein’. ...
Another Gothic characteristic of ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is that, when interpreted in different ways, it can be seen to raise various themes common to the Gothic genre. ... La belle dame then proceeded to enchant the knight: she “looked at me as she did love, and made sweet moan”, and sang “a faery’s song” so that the knight “nothing else saw all day long”. ...
‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ can also be read, however, as an allegorical warning against the powers of the human imagination, another common Gothic theme. This interpretation asserts that the knight imagined the entire tale, that there really was no ‘belle dame’ at all, and this interpretation can be supported with the lines “And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill side”.
Approximate Word count = 1311
Approximate Pages = 5.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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