Faeries and Knights

Keats’s poem appeals to readers in that its subject matter pertains to something that most people have had to deal with: the destructive forces of love (particularly unrequited love). However, this is not what at first excites or draws my interest to this work.

I have something of a passion for old folk tales and northern mythologies, and something about the way in which this poem is written feels similar to Yeats’s Irish Folk and Fairy Tales (though certainly the poem predates this book). Keats evokes something of the mystery and wonder that must have filled the early woods of the British Isles, and he here represents a continuing fascination with the faery and woodland magic that presents itself in the folk-culture of Europe throughout history. All of this, however, ignores the position of the knight in the story.

Surely it sucks to be the knight-at-arms in this story, yet despite this I will ignore his plight to examine his role as a heroic figure. The stories of knights and their chivalry and bravery are to be found all throughout British history, and the Romances of Chrétien de Troyes or the Idylls of Tennyson both make for fascinating reading. Thus, though Keats’s subject matter is that of love lost and the cruelty (it can seem) with which lovers ensnare and then abandon their partners, the method through which he accomplishes this idea places the poem in a kind of fairy-tale mode that makes it fun to read, and lends itself to an earlier history of mythopoeic fantasy.