The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy

I met a lady in the meads
Full beautiful, a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
John Keats, 1819

The life mask of John Keats. Everyone should have one of these done.



I was thinking of John Keats after having a discussion about him with a friend in a bar on St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick's led to Ireland led to Scotland led to suffering led to Keats-and all this leads to my affection for Pre-Raphaelite artists who loved the inspiration of Keats. I came home and re-read Keats' La Belle Dame Sans Merci. It is late autumn, the location is England in the age of Chivalry, and a lovesick knight tells the story of a beautiful Faery's child he encounters. They cavort in a meadow, she lures him to sleep, then abandons him, leaving him forever doomed to remain on the hillside wishing for her return. Poor Knight is definitely associated with images of death, especially the lily on his forehead...I don't think there is much question that he represents the ailing poet. The question is this: is the Woman without Mercy, death herself, symbolic of the tuberculosis that Keats knew was draining the life from him when he wrote this poem, or is she the beloved friend, Fanny Brawne, his true love whom he broke his engagement with after learning of his disease, or maybe she is his conflicting other love, the witty Isabella Jones whom he met on holiday. Keats died less than two years after writing La Belle Dame, racked with tuberculosis which he caught while nursing his most beloved brother. He lived a short life, was penniless at his death, but the man knew love. I think La Dame may not be any of those named above, but love herself, lacking the mercy to go with him.

Here she is, "the large and in charge" version as represented by Frank Cowper- putting that hair back up after putting young Knight to sleep with her charms. I love the combination of the poppies and sleep. Sort of like Wizard of Oz... Tin-Man asleep in the poppy field.

The polite, "let's hold hands and then we'll take a long nap" Walter Crane version. Walter keeps it clean.. he was mainly a children's illustrator.

Whoa Nelly....The Frank Dicksee interpretation with a holding back, less willing Knight. "She put me under a spell and I had nothing to do with any of it"

The master, Waterhouse, demonstrating a little Avatar inspired "Haloing" with the hair. Waterhouse always gets it right.. and his knights are the best. Look at the bare (light) feet, the wild eyes, the faded purple in the dress, the Knights clenched fist, and look who's wearing her heart on her sleeve.

Happy Birthday to the "Mad, Bad and Dangerous" Lord Byron

"In solitude, where we are least alone." Lord Byron

Lord Byron, the Romantic Anglo Scottish poet, was born this day in 1788. He was the public "bad boy" of his time. His treatment and his life shows us that celebrities in the early 18th century endured much of the same torture from fame as those of today, even without modern media.

Byron had a deformed foot from birth which caused a limp and lifelong misery. "The Morning Post in particular has found out that I am a sort of Richard the third--deformed in mind and body--the last piece of information is not very new to the man who passed five years at a public school." He also constantly worried about his inclination to plumpness and was a vigorous dieter, feasting for days on soda water and crackers. He was tortured because of who he loved, regardless of who was the rumored object of his affection: hundreds of women, men, boys, or his half-sister. He wrote beautiful poems to the men he loved using deceptive female names in them to avoid attacks. He loved animals, and began collecting exotic pets, including monkeys, a bear cub, badgers, foxes, an eagle, crocodiles and of course, his beloved Newfoundland dog, Boatswain. Boatswain contracted rabies and Byron nursed him for days until his death, without concern for his own safety. "Epitaph to a Dog" was for Boatswain.

Byron would be treated with so much hostility on the streets of England that he would only venture out in disguise. He was experiencing the lonliness of being recognized everywhere you go. Finally, it all got to be too much so he left for Greece in hopes of finding more acceptance of his lifestyle. The Greeks welcomed and worshipped him, and when he died there at age 36, they buried his heart under a tree before embalming his body and sending it back to England. His body was delivered to Westminster Abbey, but he was turned away. Unexpectedly, there was a public outcry for the dead poet and viewing of the body was in such demand that he was publicly displayed for days. Tickets had to be sold for the viewing and a wooden frame built around the coffin to prevent trampling by the crowds of newly devoted fans, mostly hordes of tearful ladies. He was buried next to Ada, his child that he never knew. Later, his body was exhumed and moved to Westminster Abbey to the Poet's Corner.

His contemporary Englishmen were never really able to prevent his provocative lifestyle from overshadowing his beautiful work. Sounds a little familiar.

I became especially interested in Byron when I was in my 20's after my friend, Ron, saw where Byron had etched his name in the castle wall of Chateau Chillon while traveling in Switzerland. Byron wrote the epic poem "The Prisoner of Chillon" after visiting the castle with his buddy, Percy Shelley in 1816. Byron was fascinated by the legend of Francois Bonivard, who was allegedly kept prisoner in the castle's dungeon. I'm not sure if he was channeling Byron or Bonivard, but my friend, the voice of strength in suffering, unexpectedly recited a long section of the poem in the backseat of my car once when drunk. It was inspiring. The first line of the sonnet version, "Eternal Spirit of the chainless mind" reinvents "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" from Pope's "Eloisa to Abelard."

Byron was also one of the five writers present for that locked-up wet and spooky weekend in June when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein.

Thank-you Mad Men

Frank O'Hara: 1926-1966. A charismatic figure who trusted his emotions, loved his friends and his city, and enhanced a mythological period of self confidence in American art and culture. O'Hara wrote much of his poetry in spare moments: while at lunch, on a ferry ride, or in a bar... all while he was very busy living life.

I am a little behind everyone else. I just finished watching the 1st and 2nd season of Mad Men on DVD. I am always excited and surprised when a TV show incorporates literature- especially when they do it well. Another bonus comes when the feature exposes you to an artist or works that may have previously slipped by you. I had heard of Frank O'Hara, but had not read his work until watching the Mad Men episode where Don Draper receives the "challenge" from the Boheme in the bar. The Boheme is reading a copy of O'Hara's book, Meditations In An Emergency, and when Don asks if it is good, the reader replies "I don't think you would like it." We don't expect Don would like it either, or have a real interest, but herein lies the magic of this character- the next thing we know, he is reading it... and beautifully reciting a portion from "Mayakovsky"... and mailing the book to an unknown person with the inscription.. "this made me think of you." The day after this episode aired on TV, Amazon sales of Meditations went from a ranking of 15,657 to 161. This reinforces my belief that people like poetry and want to read it, but often need permission from our pop culture to do so. Since I don't have the book, yet, I am posting the portion of the poem so I can have easy access. The best way to experience it is to watch Don Draper read it in the show. Thank-you, Mad Men.

From "Mayakovsky"

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? and if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

Frank O'Hara

A Mind of Winter

Wallace Stevens, the Insurance Executive and Poet. 1879-1955.

The Snowman

by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Wallace Stevens was a philosophical poet who said "reality is an activity, not a static object." A law school graduate, he spent 40 years as an insurance executive, writing unbelievable prose in his spare time. He became a noted poet later in his life, winning the Pulitizer Prize in 1955, the year of his death. A man of the North, who fell in love with Key West, where he broke his hand in a brawl with Ernest Hemingway. I have a vision of Stevens in his pin-striped suit and Hemingway in rolled up kakis, wrestling on Duval.

This is one of my favorite poems. There is no connotation of cold or misery for me in its verses. I never walk in the snow without hearing it... and I never hear it without taking a walk in the snow. Then I become the snowman and behold the nothing that is and is not there. I definitely have a mind of winter. I am hoping for snow on Thursday.