La Belle Dame Sans Merci and Art

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats

John William Waterhouse (April 6, 1849 - February 10, 1917)

John William Waterhouse was a painter of classical, historical and literary pieces. His father was a painter in Rome, city where he was born on 1849. In the 1850's his family went back to England, and before entering the Royal Academy school in 1870 he assisted his father in the studio. His first pieces of work were of classical themes, and were exgibited at the Royal Academy,the Society of British Arts and the Dudley Gallery. He also made several trips to Italy and painted genre scenes.

The Poem and Waterhouse's painting

La Belle Dame Sans Merci is overflowing with natural symbols, or symbols that create a link to nature. Waterhouse, in his piece, is loyal to Keats strong bonds with these mentioned characteristics, and does so through the wild way in which plants and other natural elements entangle with the knight and the beautiful lady, in an almost hypnotic environment. 

The painting is centred in the gaze between the woman and the knight, a gaze of love, of interest, of engagement. This connection is disguised by the contrast in the physical appearance of both; while the lady seems to be an extension her natural surrounding, the knight is more of an outsider, someone who does not belong, his armour if the most obvious suggestion of this idea. Nevertheless, something that is not shown in the painting, is the knight's easy handling with the surroundings,

"

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;" The knight knows how to handle the natural elements around him, in spite of not seeming to be a part of it, as the lady is.

Rhythm and Meter

Traditional Ballad form

'I saw the new moon late yestreen

      Wi' the auld moon in her arm; 

    And if we gang to sea, master,  

      I fear we'll come to harm.'

Keats´ Ballad form


O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

  Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has wither’d from the lake,


  And no birds sing









The main difference between the traditional ballad form (above) and Keats´ form (below) is mainly in the last line of each stanza. The former ends with a fully expressive line, whilst in the latter there is a cut in the last line, hence making it much slower and laying an emphasis on it. The first four stanzas end with an "unfinished" line, and they all have a message in common, which is related to death, to the end of life: "And the harvest's done", "And no birds sing". The main purpose of leaving the last line unfinished is to give it a different cadency, a slower, more paused cadency, therefore changing the mood of the ballad to a more melancholic one. It was coincidence, no mistake.


Art inspired in La Belle Dame Sans Merci








Painting by Henry Meynell Rheam, 1901.





When contrasting and comparing Waterhouse's and Meynell Rheam's versions of Keat's La Belle Dame Sans Merci there is a key factor to be taken into account, and that is that they are set in a different moment of the story, of the scene. Waterhouse gives life to the very moment of the knight and the lady's engagement, while Rheam sets a picture before the knight knows of the lady's existence. The mood and atmosphere of Rheam's is different to Waterhouse's, here the colours used are dark and dull, the season (late autumn) is very well pictured, provided by the background of leafless trees and misty air. Death is the key protagonist in Rheam, ghosts fading away in the fog, along with dead trees in the background and the half-dead knight laying on the ground. The lady, as some kind of supernatural being emerges from the somber woods to find the knight, defenseless, he is completely armed except for his head, leaving him unprotected. The look in the lady's face suggests that she wants to take advantage of the knight. On the other hand, Waterhouse's scene is completely different. Nature and its superabundance are crucial. The engagement between both, the knight and the lady, is the primary feature, accompanied by the use of vivid colours to portray a different mood.