By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ (‘the beautiful lady without mercy’) is one of John Keats’s best-loved and most widely anthologised poems; after his odes, it may well be his most famous. But is this poem with its French title a mere piece of pseudo-medieval escapism, summoning the world of chivalrous knights and beautiful but bewitching women, or does it have a deeper meaning?
You can read ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ here before proceeding to our summary below (it might be helpful to have the poem open in a separate tab so you can follow the poem and summary together).