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ENGL2004 Research paper
8. Choose one text and discuss how the imagination could be called ‘threatening’ or
‘dark’.
Keats’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci has attracted a lot of critical opinion. Unlike
Wordsworth, Keats was not afraid to explore both creative and destructive elements
of imagination within his poetry. When discussing the idea of how the imagination
could be called ‘threatening’ or ‘dark’ there are many different areas that could be
covered, including politically, physically, mentally and socially. This paper will
focus on providing examples from Keats’s La Belle Dame Sans Merciofhow the
imagination could be called ‘threatening’ or ‘dark’ in regards to the physical and
mental effects.
In La Belle Dame Sans Merci we are presented with a ballad in which the main
focus is a knight’s encounter with a supernatural woman. The woman is described as
a “faery’s child”, which seems playful at first, even the further description of her
eyes being “wild” suggests unrestricted energy. She is the personification of
imagination. The woman leads the knight on a journey into the realm of the faery.
It’s beautiful for a while; she sings her “faery song” and feeds him “roots of relish
sweet, and honey wild” and then takes him to her “elfin grot”. But things change
when the knight falls asleep and begins to dream, within what is already a dream. It
is here he gets confronted by other men “death-pale” who suggest the woman “hath
thee in thrall”. These words suggest that she is not safe, imagination is not safe and
that the knight is somewhat under a dream spell. The knight wakes from the dreams
and ends up “alone and palely loitering” and also incredibly unwell with “anguish
moist and fever dew and on thy cheeks a fading rose”.
The woman in La Belle Dame Sans Merci is first presented as a beautiful child,
the poetic muse, but as the narrative develops we can tell her character is somewhat
darker and ‘demonic’. Shankar Narayan references an early feminist analysis of La
Belle Dame Sans Merci which offers a reading of “demonic women as
representations of the poetic muse” (pg. 131). This interpretation views the woman,
and consequently the imagination that she represents, as a seductive temptation that
destroys the knight. This is symbolic of the destructive and dark side of imagination.
Alternatively, the woman could also be viewed as a fairy child who is used and
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corrupted by the knight, which would also highlight the difficulties between
imagination and reality. After all, in the poem we only ever hear the knight’s
perspective about how she loves him; “she look’d at me as she did love, and made
sweet moan.” He doesn’t even seem to understand what she says, but takes it as love
“and sure in language strange she said— “I love thee true.””. As a reader we never
hear directly from the woman, only the knight and the men in his dream. According
to the narrative she wasn’t particularly in love with him at all, but instead sapped him
of his energy and life force. It is alluded to in the knight’s dream that she has killed
the “pale kings and princes too, pale warriors” with the repetition of pale and
addition of “death-pale” and also the description of “starved lips”. Imagination is
painted thus as not friendly or warm, but either incredibly beautiful or extremely
dark. There is no middle ground.
Unlike most ballads, the narrative of La Belle Dame Sans Merciisn’t particularly
strong. There are significant gaps, like at the start of the poem when we’re not told
who is questioning the knight or if it is even his voice speaking in the poem. These
gaps and suggestions create mystery, which can lend to an interpretation that the
whole poem is a dream. Dreams are strongly linked with the imagination and whilst
most are not technically physically threatening, they can cause great mental anguish
and lack of sleep.
Imagination is an escape, a beautiful one, but it takes a severe toll. Keats,
according to Abrams, is “aware both of the attraction of an imaginative dream world
without ‘disagreeables’ and the remorseless pressure of the actual” (ENGL2004,
Lecture notes week 3, slide 21). It seems as though La Belle Dame Sans Merciis a
demonstration of this. When there is conflict between what is real and what is
imagined it can be physically threatening, as in the knight’s case. He cannot live with
the supernatural woman, even spending time in the faery realm of imagination is
taxing. He becomes a reduced man, and possibly dead depending on interpretation.
He is no longer able to fulfil his duty as a knight: a man traditionally strong and
courageous. And if he is alive, he is left in social isolation wandering the countryside
like a mad man.
Romanticism elevated imagination to the “supreme faculty of the mind” (ENGL2004
lecture notes week 2, slide 3). Lucas describes romanticism as an akin to an
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alcoholic“intoxication” (pg. 127) and Keats, “a dreaming thing, a fever of thyself”
(Lucas pg. 128). Critical opinions vary but seem to agree that imagination is the cruel
curse of art. The knight in Keats’ poem had to pay dearly for what imagination gave
him, echoing the stereotype of the tortured artist in relation to its muse and the threat
it presents.
Whilst imagination rose in importance to romantic writers such as Keats during this
time period, it also shook things up in both positive and negative ways.This we have
seen from the example in La Belle Dame Sans Merci, where imagination is
personified as a demonic muse and has the ability to create and sustain beautyor
destroy life and health. And whilst imagination is indeed a beautiful thing, for it
allows creativity and human progression, it can definitely be called ‘threatening’ or
‘dark’ in regards to its effect on physical and mental health.
Bibliography
ENGL2004. Lecture slides, week 2.
ENGL2004. Lecture slides, week 3.
Keats, John. La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Selected Poems (Penguin Classics, 1988)
Lucas, F.L. “La PrincesseLointaine: or the Nature of Romanticism.” Romanticism:
Points of View. Ed. Robert F. Gleckner, Ed. Gerald E. Enscoe. Englewood Cliffs.
Prentice Hall, INC. 1970. 125-135.
Shankar Narayan, Gaura. Studies in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, Volume
27 : Real and Imagined Women in British Romanticism. New York. Peter Lang.
11/2009.
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