Love in Poe's Annabel Lee and Keats' La Belle Dame sans Merci Poe's "Annabel Lee" and "La Belle Dame sans Merci" » by Keats describes the destructive effects that women have on men. In both poems, women, through death and deception, harm their adoring lovers. In “Annabel Lee,” Annabel dies and leaves the speaker isolated in “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” the fairy “La Belle”; Lady", captivates the speaker's heart, then abandons it. The common theme of both poems, that love generates harmful effects, is a reflection of the upsetting and harmful childhood experiences of both poets. Poetry, Keats claims, "comes from the leaven of an unhappy childhood working through a noble imagination" (Keats 16). The “lesson of [Keat’s] childhood” was that “the intensity of beauty, joy, pleasure, and bitterness of their loss” is “necessary for a poem” (Keats 17). The deaths of [Poe's] parents, adoptive mother, and wife develop a similar intensity in the form of a "lingering pity and sorrow for the dead" (Whitman 61). The malevolence implied in “Annabel Lee” and “La Belle Dame sans Merci” echoes these poets’ pasts; the speakers of the poems are unable to live healthily or comfortably after experiencing and then losing the objects of their exquisite affection. Additionally, the names of the speakers are hidden, emphasizing the importance of women over the speakers. Although both poets believe that love creates destructive situations, they differ on which type of love is most damaging. Poe believed that an innocent, sexless love hurt the most: his interlocutor went crazy with a "love that was more than love", while he and his lover were "children". Poe's "aesthetic religion" was a "cult of the beautiful... in all noble thoughts, in all ho...... middle of paper ...... a Belle Dame sans Merci" through their "fascination for condemned nature.” of love" (De Reyes 107). Works Cited Allen, Hervey. Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Holt, 1934De Reyes, Mary. "John Keats." Poetry Reviews. 3 vol. 1913Keats, John. "The Beautiful Lady without Mercy." The Poetical Works of John Keats. London: Macmillan, 1884. "The Beautiful Lady without Mercy." Washington DC. 1992 Poe, Edgar. "Annabel Lee." Stefan Gmoser Online. America Online. Saintsbury, George. . Edgar Poe and His Critics. New York: Haskell House, 1972. Wilbur, Richard., 1987