The Strange Case of La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Hi everyone at our last LB on Saturday when we were discussing the Keats poem it became clear that there were two different versions........... the one I had printed off from the net had 'wight; in the first lines of the first and second stanzas and there were other alterations. Anne Willingale our researcher par excellence quickly discovered the following:
There are two versions of this very famous ballad. The first version is from the original manuscript and the second version is its first published form. The first is generally considered the best; it was altered upon publication. We do not know who did the alteration.
The original version is found in a letter to Keats's brother, George, and dated Weds 21 April 1819. Keats typically wrote a running commentary to George and his wife Georgiana in America, then loosely grouped the pages together as one long letter. The letter which contains La Belle spans almost three months, from 14 February to 3 May 1819. It also contains other famous poems, including 'Why did I laugh tonight?' which ends, prophetically enough, 'Verse, fame and Beauty are intense indeed / But Death intenser - Death is Life's high mead.' Also included are 'To Sleep' and 'On Fame.' The letter ends with the beautiful Ode to Psyche, of which Keats wrote: 'The following Poem - the last I have written is the first and the only one with which I have taken even moderate pains - I have for the most part dash'd of[f] my lines in a hurry - '
La Belle Dame Sans Merci (The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy/Pity) was dashed off, then, and largely dismissed by Keats himself. It was first published in the Indicator on 10 May 1820 and has since become one of his most celebrated poems.
Note: In 1893, the pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse was inspired by La Belle Dame Sans Merci to create one of his most famous works. Click here to view the painting.
Thanks for that Anne.........so the mystery remains.....who had the temerity to alter the poem presumably without the poet's permission? Maybe Keats didnt care too much...........must be a story in it somewhere.
I'm reading Rose Tremain's The Road Home. This novel is worth a thousand reports and official investigations into immigration. As usual Tremain writes like an angel and draws our attention in a delicate yet ucompromising manner to the lives behind the stereotypes and media myths.
Also well into; 'Marching to the Fault Line,' by Francis Beckett and David Hencke. This is the story of the Miners Strike and describes what happens when a so called 'democratic party' goes to war with its citizens. This was a fault line in our recent history and the social problems inherent in British society today stem in part from the way the forces of law and order were used (apparently quite willingly) to crush the aspirations of whole working class communities. I seem to be in an extreme left wing mood at the moment and watched Lindsay Anderson's 1968 film IF.
It says everything that needs to be said!!!!!!!!!
I look forward to hearing from you all.
Michael