In Frank Dicksee’s (1853-1928) painted interpretation of “La Belle Dame sans Merci” we definitely see the knight “in thrall.”
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La Belle is on the knight’s horse but seems to be in full control of the situation. She is leaning over toward him with her red hair lush and flowing behind his head—enveloping him. She is holding the horse’s elaborate reins with one hand. Although she seems to be in control of him as well, the horse is stomping with one foot and has his head thrown down as if in nervous rejection.
The knight, however, sees nothing but La Belle. He is looking directly into her eyes and seems unable to look anywhere else. His arms are thrown out as if to balance against a fall, emphasizing his abandonment to the “lady in the meads.” He’s in full armor except that his helmet is attached to the horse’s harness. There is a long red scarf wound around the helmet, the favor given to the knight by La Belle. The scarf is a metaphor of courtly love: The damsel gives her knight a gift of clothing before he goes into battle. However, what is represented here is not courtly love because the damsel is neither virtuously modest nor in distress. The opposite seems to be in case: The knight looks innocent though ignorant of any distress. (A good book, in part dealing with the stages of courtly love in the Medieval Period, is Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror.)
The landscape around the couple indicates spring, a literary metaphor of awakening. However, the sky off in the distance seems to be of a setting sun which connects to a theme of loss. La Belle is bewitching the knight and the helplessness of the man makes us want to come to his aid . In a sense, Dicksee has forced the viewer into the position of the warning ghosts in the poem.
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