 Hello and welcome to a summary of what you need to know about the poem La belle dame sans merci by John Keats. I'll explain the meaning related to this poem as it appears in part 3 of the Pearson-Edexcel International GCSE anthology. Now do bear in mind that in contrast to part 1 of the anthology which featured only non-fiction texts and part 2 which is a mix of fiction short stories and poems. Part 3 of this anthology exclusively features poems alone. So in this video I'll highlight key language and literary devices used in the poem and you learn how to analyse it. So let's get started. Now what I'll do is I'll read the first three verses and pause every so often as I'm reading throughout the poem to point out important literary techniques. So let's begin. Oh, what can Eldie knight at arms alone and purely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake no bird sing. Oh, what can Eldie knight at arms so haggard and so woe be gone? The squirrel's granaries fall and the harvests stun. I see a lily on thy brow with anguish moist and fever due and on that cheek fading rose fast withereth too. Now the opening of this ballad is really powerful because essentially there's a speaker. We don't know who they are. They're anonymous and they find this knight who seems to be really really ill at ease perhaps withering and they're asking them the question what's wrong with them? Now let's first focus on the title itself. La belle dame sans merci. Now this is essentially French for the beautiful lady without mercy or without thanks. Now also bear in mind the term belle dame and as we learn about this lady and the poem progresses this is actually referring to a femme fatale. Now a femme fatale is a dangerous woman who we find in lots of novels fiction stories and so on who seems quite beautiful outwardly and quite vulnerable. However they're quite deceptive, destructive and quite seductive so we're going to see that at the core of why this knight is quite ill ailing is because of a beautiful woman. Also as I mentioned the poetic form of this poem is a ballad. It's a poem that narrates a story in short predictable stanzas and is written in quaterines four line stanzas. Now in the first stanza, oh what can el thee? Now the reference to el thee is this focus by the narrative voice on the pain and the melancholy of this knight at arms and already we're quite intrigued as we're reading this. Moreover this is Eury here, focuses our attention on this person who's ailing and we learn that it's a knight at arms and this reveals the key character the key person that is going to tell the story about this femme fatale. Moreover we learn that this knight at arms is a lone and pearly loitering. Now the rhetorical question here is asked by the narrator and they're basically asking the knight, what's wrong? You look quite pale, you're alone and you're kind of loitering around here in this garden. The speaker then goes on to state the sedge has withered and bear in mind that a sedge is a plant and when they state the sedge has withered essentially this is the metaphor for the knight withering away. Furthermore on line five we learned that not only is the knight withering away but actually where they are there's no birds that sing there so we get a sense of a bleak wintry landscape which is bereft of hope. Now in verse two again there's this repetition, oh what can el thee knight at arms and this repetition fits in with the ballad form of this poem. Furthermore there's again this repetition of thee, this anaphor, this anaphoric reference and the repetition of thee makes us focus on this knight. Now we learn that the knight is haggard, woe be gone, he's an anguish and he seems to be in some kind of fever. Now this belongs to a semantic field of misery all of this language and what this shows is that the knight his life force has been drained and again this further intrigues us as readers wondering what's going on why is the knight looking like this. Furthermore the speaker states or the narrator voice states the squirrel's granary is full we get the sense that it's winter the squirrels have gathered all the provisions animals are about to hibernate and this knight is just there and he seems to be really really ill. Moreover in line 10 the harvest on again there's this emphasis on winter it's approaching and thus there's a sense of hopelessness and abandonment that's created in these first two stanzas. Now in the third stanza the speaker states I see a lily on their brow and what this is stating is that the speaker can see that the knight's forehead is as pale as a lily they're really not looking well. Moreover the speaker states on thy cheek a fading rose and the metaphor here emphasizes the youth, vitality and energy of this night has been sapped so we are extremely intrigued what's going on why are they so sickly looking. So let's carry on. I met a lady in the mead's full beautiful a fairy'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 sat her on my pacing steed and nothing else saw all day long for a side long wood she bend and sing a fairies song. Now in this part of the ballad we now get the knight's own perspective and this is emphasized through the repetition of the first person pronoun. We hear from the knight who explains why he's there and why he's looking so frail and fragile as he does. Now the knight reminds us of this femme fatale and meta ladies this is the woman who's in charge or who has caused this illness within him. Now the knight says she's full beautiful fairies child and the litteration of full and fairy emphasizes this woman's alluring beauty. Moreover the caesura hair full beautiful and then there's a pause the hyphen it creates the knight's own or rather it reflects the knight's own pause as he recalls her beautiful appearance and then he remembers she was a fairies child. Now the knight assumes that she was a child of a fairy as she was just so enchanting and uncanny to look at. Then the knight continues to describe her appearance so hair was long her foot was light and her eyes were wild. Now the tricolon hair hair foot eyes and the semantic fold of body parts emphasizes the knight's sexual attraction to this beautiful woman. Moreover we learn that her eyes were wild and the litteration hair shows that the woman this woman this beautiful woman appears wild animalistic and very otherworldly but actually this is what made her so alluring to this knight. Now in the following verse we learn that the knight made a garland and a garland is basically a crown made of plants he put a crown on her head like a queen he almost worshipped her because she was so beautiful and he was so dazzled by her. Moreover he made bracelets too and what this shows is the knight is courting her in a very traditional way he's trying to romance her in a very very traditional way. Furthermore the knight states and fragrance zone and essentially what the knight is stating here is that he made a belt made with scents of flowers and therefore he embellishes beautiful woman with gifts. Now he refers to her she looked at me as she did love and the repetition of the third person pronoun she shows this knight's obsession with her. Moreover in 925 she did love and made sweet moon now the litteration made in moon and the onomatopoeia itself moon is quite sensual what this shows is that the knight was even more so captured and seduced by this woman's sexuality. Now in the following verse we learn that the knight put her on my pacing steed essentially what he's saying is that he placed on his horse so we get this very traditional almost medieval image of this knight who's sitting there on his horse and he places her on a steed on his horse. Moreover he then states nothing else saw all day long so what this shows is the knight was so captivated he can only focus on this beautiful woman and he was captivated and charmed by her. Furthermore for side long would she bend and sing now the sibilance here side long she and sing shows she would lean forward and sing a fairy song to this knight and again once more he repeats fairy song and the repetition here emphasizes this other wildliness of this woman but also how she seduces him and how she maybe puts him into a trance. So let's carry on. She found me roots of relish sweet and honey wild and manadoe and short 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 kisser's paw and there she lulled me asleep and there I dreamed uh woe betide the latest dream I could have ever dreamt on the cold hillside. So now in this part of the ballad essentially he places on his horse and then she leads him to a place in this enchanted forest perhaps where she gets him food and then she appears to be very emotional he then gets her to calm down he kisses her four times and then she lulls him to sleep. Now in verse seven he states that she found me roots of relish sweet now the litteration roots and relish shows that this lady found him nutritious food and roots in the wild. Moreover the reference to roots relish sweet honey wild and manadoe the somatic field of food here nourishment shows that she further allured him by feeding him. Moreover the reference to manadoe now this food shows that the knight almost is reminiscent his thinking of the manor which kept the Israelites alive in the bible on the journey in the book of exodus as they escaped Egypt so being with this woman being fed by her having this food given by this woman was almost a quasi religious experience for this night this is how otherworldly she was. Then we learn that in a different language she said and the sibilance here shows that she's entrancing him even further and further more and then she confesses I love thee true now this direct dialogue shows we hear directly from this femme fatale and she tells him directly that she loves him and she thus lures him into a false sense of security he feels like he's got her. Now she then takes him in verse eight to her elfin grot now this is essentially a fairy cave and this enchanted cave emphasizes that the knight is now powerless under her he's under her spell. Then we learn she wept inside false all what this shows is that she was overcome with emotion she shows him some vulnerability again fitting into this femme fatale the woman appears seemingly quite vulnerable but isn't quite that vulnerable then this repetition and allusion back to her wild wild eyes and the repetition here shows that she's quite wild animalistic and uncivilized but all this does is entrance the night even more then the knight kisses her he kisses her four times to soothe her because she seems like she's crying she's overcome with emotion then the following verse there she lulled me to sleep now here what this shows is that the knight has been cast under a spell and she leads him to sleep moreover the enjambement here speeds up the pace of the poem now the night then dreams and the repetition of dreamed dream and dreamt makes us focus on the horror of the dream that he will describe now he's under her spell and he's fallen asleep moreover the parenthesis shows us his horror at the dream ah we're betide and the exclamatory sentence is a turning point this is the volta she goes from being this beautiful charming woman now the night is under a spell and something terrible is about to happen moreover the reference to on the cold hillside shows that this night is lonely and abandoned so let's continue i saw pal kings and princess too pal warriors death pal were they all the cried la belle dame sans merci thee hath in thrall i saw their starved lips in the glow with horrid mourning gaped wide and i woke and found me here on this cold hillside and this is why us to drown here alone and pale in loitering though the sedges withered from the lake and no birds sing now the ending is quite ominous so the night tells us that when he now dreamt he saw pal kings princes and pal warriors and the repetition of the adjectives pal shows that these men have lost the vitality just like the night these men that he dreams of now the men that this woman captures are kings princes and warriors now the rule of three here shows that this woman has seduced many powerful men and he dreams he perceives all these victims around him having this horrible look of death moreover this is further emphasized with the description death pal and he sees the victims of this femme fatale and his horror he realizes has now become another one of those victims now 950 the cried and this onomatopoeia shows the despair la belle dame sans merci the hathen thrall now this cry is the victims basically telling the night that he has also been caught by this woman he's now under her spell now the alliteration the enthrall is quite forceful as it emphasizes then the night is now a prisoner he's dreamt and now he's realized through the revelation in his dream that he's now a prisoner to this woman then the night states i saw the starved lips and saw and starved the sibilance here is quite airy because it shows that he's going to undergo the same transformation this negative dramatic transformation now the reference to the gloam gloam means a time of day when it's after sunset and this is essentially a usipathetic fallacy to show darkness to show the lack of hope now the reference to with warning wide the alliteration here is powerful because it shows that the men these men that the night has dreamed of the kings princes and warriors but also himself they've now become like zombies under this woman's spell they're now victims permanently to this woman then the night states and i awoke so they awake from this dream and what this symbolizes is that the night came back to his rational way of thinking and he emerged from under her spell but now he's too late because he finds himself on the cold hillside and the repetition of the cold hillside shows he's lonely he's abandoned now he then says this is why i sojourn here and this means rest or linger he explains now to this speaker this is why you find me like this here and then john want gives us as we just pause for thought again the night restates alone and paley loitering and this is a repetition of the rhetorical question which the speaker asked the night in line two but now it's come full circle who's explained why he's alone and paley loitering now the poem ends with a no bird sing and what this does is it ends the entire poem on a dark gloomy and ominous note almost as a warning against beautiful femme fatale so that's all if you found this video useful please do note that we have an in-depth extensive course covering all the texts and poems in parts one two and three of the anthology so make sure you sign up for this course for explanations on all the texts as well as model answers now do also check out our website www.firstreetteachers.com where you will find plenty of English revision worksheets model answers on online courses covering all the major English syllabuses including at excel aqn igcse thanks so much for watching