Do You Have a Sunburn, or Are You Always This Hot: The Succubus in "La Belle Dame sans Merci"

When faced with the task of imagining a knight it is typical to picture shining armor, swords, and daring quests. The basic thread of the noble hero saving a princess from a dragon is used so often in western culture that it would be hard to find someone who does not recall this trend.  John Keats’ “La Belle Dame sans Merci” takes the common ‘knight saves damsel in distress’ plot line and gives it a new direction. Instead of the active knight fighting to save his lady we are given an aimless man who has been defeated, and a mysterious woman who very clearly is not in need of rescue.  

When the narrator introduces the knight, he does not match typical descriptions of a brave, chivalrous, hero. Instead he is “alone and palely loitering,” (2) looking half dead and confused. Upon closer inspection the narrator makes note of his cheeks, “a fading rose/Fast withereth too” (11). It is obvious that whatever the knight has faced has left him drained both physically and emotionally. The fact that he wanders around aimlessly, opposed to on some valiant quest where we are used to seeing his kind, shows that something has affected him deeply enough for him to lose his purpose in life. When the knight is asked to give an account of what has happened to him he describes falling in love with a “faery’s child” (14) who he takes away with him. However, given the odd circumstances following him running away with the mysterious woman, I think it is safe to assume she is something far more sinister than the child of a fairy.   

Succubi are demons who take the form of beautiful women in order to seduce men. Tracing back to the medieval ages, succubi were thought to lure men to them with the promise of sex and love, however, once one performed any sexual act with a succubi they would begin to fade away and die. Some legends of succubi, such as ones found in Arabian mythology, specifically state that they lure men to sleep and then have sex with them while they are unconscious. Today succubi are better known by their name from Greek mythology, Sirens. Given the sexual nature in which the beautiful woman is described and the fact that she lures the knight to sleep before he is startled awake by visions of a group of haggard men, it seems safe to label her a succubus.

While asleep the knight has visions of dead men with “starved lips” (41) who warn him that the beautiful woman has him in her “thrall” (40). Given succubus lore the men who come to the knight are probably past victims of the woman, warning him awake before he succumbs to the same fate they have. When the knight awakens and finds himself alone on the “cold hill’s side,” (44) the fact that the weather has changed so much from the warm spring the reader saw the couple in a few lines before implies that he has been asleep for many months. Due to the fact that the knight and the woman have already had sex, as insinuated by previous lines, it is already too late for him. When the narrator finds him alone and wandering we do not know how much time the knight has been awake and staying in the cold but because he was seduced by the woman it is unlikely he will remain alive much longer.

When the knight first describes the woman he highlights that she was too beautiful to be of this world and instead labels her a fairy.  In the knights seduction of the woman he describes putting flowers of her “fragrant zone” (26) which causes her to “and [make] sweet moan,” (28) this exchange implies that the knight and the woman have engaged in some sort of sexual activity. Even if they have not yet had sex at this point it is still enough for him to ride with her until they reach her home, where she cries until he kisses her. The woman is acting as if she were the damsel in distress, but as the reader already knows she is not. Instead the tears may just be a way to coax the knight into feeling as if she needs his protection. The knight and the woman remain wrapped up in each other until she lulls him to sleep, presumably having completed her seduction. 

By turning the classic damsel in distress into a succubus, Keats gives the reader a much darker version of the classic knight’s tale that leaves the reader chilled at the end. 

For more information on succubi and depictions of women as non-human seductresses in literature check out this link.
Because in my head mermaids are basically succubi check out this, this and this. I really love mermaids you guys, especially the evil seductress kind.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you agree with this interpretation of the woman as a succubus? If not what is she? What is the effect of having a knight brought down by the power of a woman? What is the effect of the knight never triumphing over her?

2. When the knight and the woman are together it is spring, however, by the time the narrator encounters the knight it is late autumn, what is the effect of the setting change?   

3. Keats was most likely familiar with Greek mythology, do you think that tales such as the Odyssey influenced his decision to take the knight story and turn it on its head? Maybe there was some influence from Odysseus fighting the sirens?