La Belle Dame sans Merci | Aspects of Tragedy

setting

• two contrasting, distinct worlds - the dreamlike, enchanting world of the faery vs. the bleak, desolate real world

• the tragic convention of a protagonist moving from a state of bliss or power to suffering and despair

• the knight experiences momentary ecstasy in the faery world

• the real world is associated with death and stasis, reinforcing the idea that tragedy often ends in ruin rather than renewal

• the sublime world is fleeting, mirroring the tragic loss of happiness that defines the tragedy genre

inevitabiltiy

• the knight’s downfall seems pre-determined from the first stanza (‘palely loitering’), creating a sense of foreboding

• the knight’s fate is foreshadowed by the ‘Pale warriors’

• the cyclical structure includes repetition from the first stanza (‘the sedge is wither’d from the lake’), illustrating a continuous cycle of decay and despair and sorrow that defines the knight's fate

• the use of cyclical elements emphasises the inescapable nature of destiny in the narrative, suggesting that both joy and sorrow are fated outcomes in the knight's journey

tragic hero/tragic victim

• the knight’s noble status is a key characteristic of a classical tragic hero

• ‘Fast withereth too’ highlights the extent of the knight’s downfall

• is the knight a tragic victim of the faery, or is the faery a tragic victim of the knight?

• is the faery curing the knight, or poisoning him?

• the knight as an unreliable narrator

peripeteia

• caesura physically separates the good fortune from the bad fortune (‘- Ah! wow betide!’)

• the sense of drama in the knight’s tone highlights the sudden reversal of fortune

• the knight’s sense of despair and mourning and his purposelessness

• the knight presents himself as a victim

anagnorisis

• ‘I saw pale kings and princes too’

• ‘They cried - La Belle Dame sans Merci hath thee in thrall!”’

• ‘I awoke and found me here, on the cold hill’s side’

• suffering with withdrawal from the faery

• sense of abandonment

loss of identity

• ‘no birds sing’

• a lack of meaning

• nature mirrors events and the knight’s emotions

• the Romantic idea of the external reflects the internal

• nature dies with the knight

• ‘hath thee in thrall!”’

• Keats’s warning about exploiting nature

resolution

• ‘And that is why I sojourn here, alone and palely loitering’

• repetition from first stanza

• cyclical structure

• links to the inevitability of fate

• inescapable fate

• purposelessness

• tragic resolution

• the death of nature is tragic to the Romantics

• the downfall of the knight as the tragic hero

• the knight is punished for exploiting nature