coraline_movie

Hey boys and girls, I'm new. I saw the movie the other day, and being a former English major, noticed an obscure link to a poem written by John Keats way back in 1819. I'm guessing that this is where Gaiman got the idea for the Beldam. Has anyone else noticed this? It's called "La Belle Dame sans Merci", which translates to "The Beautiful Woman without Mercy", btw. Let me know what you think...


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 woebegone?
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 cheek 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 dreamed
On the cold hill's side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried -`La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee 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 has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing."


Sounds a lot like her to me. Except she's after men in the poem, not children. But there's the ghosts of the people she's taken before, and the beautiful world she taken the knight to which turns out not to be so beautiful at all. And she starts out loving and taking care of the knight, but discards him in the end. Although even though he's been discarded, he can't leave. He has to stay in her world, on the hillside by the lake.

Somebody tell me what you think!