[اخت سلطان]

......."La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is a literary ballad, a poem that imitates a folk ballad. A folk ballad tells a story that centers on a theme popular with the common people of a particular culture or place. Generally of unknown authorship, a folk ballad passes by word of mouth from one generation to the next. One of its key characteristics is a cadence that makes it easy to set to music and sing.
.......A literary ballad has a known author who composes the poem with careful deliberation according to sophisticated conventions. Like the folk ballad, it tells a story with a popular theme. However, accomplished nineteenth-century romantic poets such as Keats couched literary ballads in more elegant language than that of typical folk ballads. “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is intended to be read, not sung.
.......Keats completed the poem in April 1819. Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), a critic and poet, published a revised version of the poem in his literary periodical, The Indicator, in 1820. The original version is generally regarded as superior to the altered version.
The Title
.......John Keats based the title of his literary ballad on the title of a long French poem with a different story. The title of the latter poem, written in 1424 by Alain Chartier (1392-1433), is “La Belle Dame sans mercy.” (Notice the different spelling of the last word.) As a feminine noun, the French word merci means pity or mercy. As a masculine noun, it means thanks. The translation of the title is “The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy.”
Setting
.......The time is late autumn. The place is England during the Age of Chivalry. A lovesick knight tells an unidentified person about a beautiful “faery's child” he met in a meadow.
Themes
Interpretation 1: Unrequited Love
.......After telling the knight she loves him, the beautiful lady lulls him to sleep and abandons him. As he sits alone on a cold hillside, his unrequited love makes him physically ill. He lacks the energy and will to move on. All he can do is brood.
Interpretation 2: Impossible Love
.......Line 30 of the poem says, "And there she wept and sighed full sore." The suggestion here is that the lady does care for the knight but realizes she must leave him because she is a fairy and he is a human. Two such beings cannot have a life together. This theme can apply to any man and woman who love each other but cannot marry because of cultural, religious, or social barriers or any other impediment.
.......Be aware that lines 37-44 bring into question the validity of this interpretation. However, it may well be that the fairy lady, depressed and lonely in her elfin grot (line 29) became enamored of kings, princes, and other knights in previous decades or centuries.
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Interpretation 3: Terminal Illness
.......In the summer of 1818, Keats began exhibiting symptoms of tuberculosis, a disease that had already infected his younger brother, Tom, who died in December of that year. Exactly when Keats became aware that he was suffering from a killer disease is uncertain. But, as an observer of his brother's symptoms and as a trained apothecary who had worked in hospitals, Keats must have suspected that his own symptoms were an ominous sign. Consequently, when he wrote “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” in the spring of 1819, he might have intended the beautiful woman as a symbol for the life, which was slowly slipping away from him. During this time, he must have felt like the knight sitting on the cold hill—pale, feverish, and alone. He lasted less than two more years, dying in February 1821.

Rhyme Scheme and Meter
.......The rhyme scheme of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is abcb—that is, the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme.
.......In each stanza, the meter of the first three lines is iambic tetrameter. In this format, a line contains four feet (four pairs of syllables), with the stress falling on the first syllable in each pair. The first two lines of the poem demonstrate this metric pattern.
.......1..............2..................3......,, ,,.........4
O WHAT..|..can.AIL..|..thee.KNIGHT..|..at.ARMS
......1.................2...............3......... ...4
A LONE..|..and.PALE..|..ly.LOIT..|..er.ING
The meter of the last line of each stanza is usually in iambic dimeter: In this format, a line contains two feet (two pairs of syllables), with the stress falling on the first syllable in each pair. The last line of the first stanza demonstrates this pattern.
.....1................2
and NO..|..birdsSING
In addition, the last line of some stanzas combines an anapestic foot with an iambic foot, as in line 8:
........1.....................2
and the HAR..|..vest's DONE
Narration
.......The poem is a dialogue between an unidentified person and a knight. The former asks the latter why he looks so pale and feverish. The latter responds with his story about the beautiful fairy woman.
Tone
.......The mood of the poem is somber and sorrowful. Keats maintains it with such adjectives as woebegone, sighed, gloam, and alone. In addition, he sets the poem in late autumn so that nature—the withering sedge, the cold, and the absence of birdsong—reflects the mood of the knight.
Figures of Speech
.......Following are examples of figures of speech in the poem:
Alone and palely loitering (line 2): alliteration.
lily on thy brow (line 9): phor comparing the knight's paleness to the hue of a lily.
And on thy cheeks a fading rose (line 11): phor comparing the color of his cheeks to the color of a rose.
Full beautiful, a faery's child (line 14): alliteration.
roots of relish, sighed full sore (line 25): alliteration.
And there . . . (lines 30, 31, 33, 34): anaphora.
I saw pale Kings, and Princes too / Pale warriors, death pale were they all (lines 37-39): alliteration.