Jaycee Woods

While formatting a draft story, I decided to give it the working title « Le Beau Homme sans Prestance ». Mine is a dream story so I asked Copilot for a suggestion for a literary reference to a ‘dream woman.’ It replied:

“One famous literary reference to a dream woman is « La Belle Dame sans Merci » by John Keats. In this poem, a knight encounters a beautiful, enchanting woman in his dream. She leads him into a dreamlike state of love and fantasy, only to leave him desolate and alone when he awakens. The woman represents an idealized but unattainable figure, evoking both desire and sorrow.”

After reading the poem, I thought it a nice parallel to my drafted story about a contemporary middle-aged single woman, so I adapted Keats’ title to my own story while retaining the French.

As I read while formatting, at first, I did not like my draft as the female lead was unrealistic idealized romantic Mary Sue. Yuri was a 35-year-old successful single childless businesswoman returning to her large home from a trip to England. Felix, her 18-year-old jacked manservant, greeted her return with a surprise birthday celebration. In general, Felix fears her displeasure, respects her accomplishments, and looks up to her as a wise successful mentor. As the story progresses, they get closer, she confesses her love, blah blah blah, and he offers to make her secret desire for a child come true by offering his man juice. In the end, she wakes up as it was all her dream; in her reality, she has loneliness, childlessness, and a shift at her waitressing job with which to celebrate her 35th birthday.

In retrospect, I am surprised by how much my draft short story appears to be a modernized gender-swapped adaptation of a classic poem from 1819 that I had not previously read. 🙂 Some might say that I am cruel to contrast the ideal in a dream with a single middle-aged woman’s harsh reality, but those would not take Keats to task for doing the same with a man.

Side note: I decided to rename the Felix character Keats to link to the poem.

**

La Belle Dame sans Merci by John Keats (1819)

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

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.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.