The Six Passions of the Red-Hot Lover

It is an 1893 John Waterhouse painting entitled ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ or ‘The Beautiful Lady without Mercy’. The title is the same as an 1819 John Keats poem: a ballad, a type of poem revived by the romantics from the medieval genre. The lady is seen as powerfully destructive to the knight because she’s beautiful, fascinating and unattainable. She appears to have supernatural abilities. At the same time, the knight is vulnerable to her because of his state of mind and the fact that he falls hopelessly in love with her. As he wakes up from his dream and has to reckon with the fact that she’s gone, he feels like he’s dying. This poem is consistent with the themes of medieval courtly love. The lady-love was meant to be physically unavailable and the knight would properly respond with lovesickness. In The Six Passions of the Red-hot Lover,…