BMJ  2007;334:803 (14 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.39175.619375.94

Views & reviews

MEDICAL CLASSICS

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Tamzin Cuming, specialist registrar, general surgery

Homerton Hospital, London

tzcuming@hotmail.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Keats, it is well known, had some medical training. He completed his house jobs at Guy's Hospital after becoming one of the first people to pass the licence of the Society of Apothecaries—a GP of the era. His experience of the family tuberculosis that would eventually kill him at the age of 25 and his early years of surgical assistance gave him knowledge and experience of death, the only clue to his medical background that can be seen in his work.

In La Belle Dame Sans Merci, an imitation of a medieval ballad, an alluring, otherworldly damsel has fatally tempted the "knight-at-arms" who is found, at the poem's beginning, "alone and palely loitering." The narrator who addresses the opening line to the knight could be a medic taking a history—"Oh what can ail thee"—and goes on to a physical inspection of the lovelorn and possibly hallucinating knight (changed to . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Caveat emptor
Fiona Godlee
BMJ 2007 334: 0. [Extract] [Full Text]

Access all current jobs at BMJ Group
Whats new online at Student BMJ
Listen to the latest BMJ Interview