“La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, or in translation, “the beautiful lady without mercy” is a phrase appropriated by John Keats as the title of his 1820 poem describing the story about a seductive and deceptive woman who leads men away from the world of masculinity and then leaves them with their lives in ruins. It has been argued that the poem is anti-feminist and reflects the concept of the fetal woman. Feminist critics question how the "fairy child" is represented to the reader, focusing on power relations, and why this is important when considering the social context of the 19th century. Although it can be argued that a feminist reading is extremely useful in describing the allegorical meaning of the character's depiction as a woman, recent criticism has questioned the extent to which this allegory contains truth. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"?Get the original essay Keats's Belle takes the form of a traditional medieval ballad with 12 quatrains alternating in tetrameter and trimeter iambic lines and a diagram of rhymes written in ABCB. This form, revived by the Romantic poets, creates a haunting and disturbing effect throughout the poem, foreshadowing the “misfortune” that will follow. Feminist critics have argued that in addition to form, Keats uses the motif of supernatural imagery to warn the reader of the power of women. The repetition of comments about the mysterious woman's "wild, wild eyes" acts as a warning to the "knight at arms" of this woman's evil seductive power and the destruction this could cause. It would have been difficult to expect a 19th-century male audience to conceptualize female power as positive when the ideal was that of the pure, dependent woman, indicating that Keats's intention in using said supernatural imagery was to represent something other than this ideal expectation. as dangerous. Likewise, feminist critics point to the idea of ​​La Belle promoting the concept of binary opposition between man and woman. Keats's description of his use of "strange language" represents woman as something "other", implying that women have an "essentially different" character from men. Feminist critics find this unacceptable, arguing that differences between men and women should be seen as socially constructed and that it is therefore more of a necessity than simply a help to criticize Beauty from a feminist perspective in order to question gender roles. However, the romantic context must be considered here – although the poem may initially appear as a "warning" against female power and readers are undoubtedly meant to feel sympathy for the man, it could be interpreted as a reminder of medieval chivalry. In this tradition, love was considered more of an abstract concept than something that could or should actually be experienced. Beauty is an example of courtly love poetry, concerned with an idealized vision of love. However, the motif of supernatural imagery in the poem complicates this concept, indicating that in reality, love is complex. This would imply that the poem acts as a warning against love in general rather than against women's power. Reading the poem from a feminist perspective requires the reader to ignore the context and is therefore unhelpful. Furthermore, Theresa M Kelley argues that "her (the fairy's) otherness is a provocation... a response to Keats's early criticism, the Fair Lady makes this reception story apart of its meaning” further supporting the argument that the context of the poem is capable of explaining the apparently anti-feminist aspects. It could be argued that the meaning of The Beautiful Lady is more of an exaggerated parody in response to criticism that Keats's earlier works were too simple rather than an allegorical depiction against all women. The use of archaic language such as "withereth" and "hash" implies that Keats explicitly makes a point of being deliberately exaggerated. Therefore, reading La Belle Dame Sans Merci from a feminist perspective would mean completely misunderstanding the poet's intentions. Furthermore, we can say that it is the “meadow lady” who really deserves our sympathy, the “fairy” is the real victim. Kate Millet's book, Sexual Politics, examined male characters in classic works similar to Keats's Beauty and found the male characters to be "denigrating, exploitative, and repressive in their relationships with women." This idea is reflected throughout the poem from a feminist perspective, and therefore suggests that such a perspective is very useful in understanding the ambiguities surrounding male power. Keats uses a semantic field of entrapment to refer to the knight's relationship with the mysterious woman. While on the surface the creation of "bracelets" and "garlands" appears to symbolize kindness and love towards the "fairy", if one considers the poem in the context of attitudes towards power in the 19th century, it seems more logical that they are intended to bind and capture her. The knight has clearly made La Belle his possession, telling us that he has "put her on my steed", it is clear that La Belle has little control and it can be argued that, consistent with the theory of Millet, the lady is exploited for her. “full beauty” to allow the knight to feel a sense of masculine control. Therefore, when the couple arrive at the supernatural-seeming “elven cave,” we are told how the fairy was “crying and sighing deeply” – she doesn’t want to be there. However, the issue of ambiguity surrounding tears has been challenged by critics who do not take a feminist perspective. It could be argued that the tears actually represent the Fair Lady's guilt – the plot of the dream implies that this is not the case. it is the first time she leaves a man she had promised to “love”, and she is already mourning the destruction of the knight. After all, the use of the “withered rose” metaphor in the third stanza reflects this sense of inevitable doom. Feminist critics might raise the question of how far the speaker can be trusted when he speaks to the passing stranger of the supernatural temptress who destroyed him and left him full of "anguish." It could be argued that women are not obligated to "love" men in return and that viewing "pale kings, "princes" and "warriors" as victims of this femme fatale is an assumption. unfair, especially when that blame is placed on the woman from the speaker's perspective. Some feminist critiques might focus on the connection between "fairies" and nature by looking at the gifts of "sweet relish roots" and "wild honey and manna dew", commenting on how nature has been feminized at the beginning of the 19th century as having the same qualities of women; graceful, weak, simple and of course “beautiful”. In contrast to this, we are told of a strong male "warrior", which suggests that this would be a perfect balance of gender roles. However, it could be argued that the aim of the poem is not to present women in general as weak, and that there is no need.