Classic Medieval Romanticism in La Belle Dame sans...

Romanticism can be broadly defined as that which is `the fabulous, the extravagant, the fictitious and the unreal. The words Romantic and Romanticism were applied to or used for a literary trend in English literature of the last quarter of 18th and mid-nineteenth century to refer to various tendencies. Later the term Romanticism was applied to `resurgence of extinct and emotion which could not be suppressed by the `rationalism of the 18th century and a low key revolt could be heard in some literary works. Some romanticists are amorous of the far, they try to escape from the familiar or real world of sufferings, pain and mutability to an imaginary world. In his effort to create a world of Beauty or a utopia a romantic poet may move†¦show more content†¦The ballad used little description, it narrated very few incidents and the details of the story were presented in a straight forward manner. The themes of the old ballads were usually love and war, an exciting adventure, a loss , a family disaster, usually they contained supernatural elements. Many legends concerning `women were current during the dim and shadowy Middle Ages. The beauty of the Fatal Woman or Femme Fatale was a curse to the mankind. These women were often presented as enchantress, witches, sirens, mermaids or serpent women who lured men by their strange (`wild) beauty to their ruin or death. The Lady of Keatss ballad is a fatal woman of medieval romance. The title itself suggests that she is a beautiful lady without any pity who ruins the life of a knight. In this ballad La Belle Keats has depicted a cheated soul. Flight into visionary experience and back again is expressed by means of well-known motif of a mortals ruinous love for a supernatural lady. La Belle is a dramatic verse narrative in which the speaker comes across a woeful knight at arms in a desolate winter setting. He asks the knight why he is loitering aimlessly, all alone, in this cold landscape, why he looks so pale, pale and lifeless. The knight narrates his eerie experience. He tells that he met a `beauty (a fairys child) in the mead and fell passionately in love with her. He rode with her to her elfin grot where the