'La Belle Dame qui eust mercy' and 'Le Dialogue d'amoureux et de sa dame'

<p><em>La Belle Dame qui eust mercy </em>and <em>Le Dialogue d’amoureux et de sa dame</em> are two late-medieval poems in which a courtly gentleman and lady debate the merits of his pleas for her affections. In both cases the lady is recalcitrant dismissing her suitor’s lovesickness as a trifle denying that she ever gave any sign of encouragement and wishing to protect her reputation. The lady in <em>Le Dialogue</em> never capitulates; in contrast the Belle Dame ends by agreeing to her lover’s suit and imagining a future in which they will joyfully live together. </p><p>Both poems merit serious attention for their kinship with Alain Chartier’s <em>La Belle Dame sans mercy</em> (1424) and other poems in the so-called “Belle Dame” cycle. Their presence in numerous fifteenth- and sixteenth-century manuscript and printed collections attests to their appeal in their day. Equally as significant is their unusual bipartite stanzaïc structure suggesting amalgamation of separate poems and/or continuations of existing poems. Such an anomaly complicates attribution of authorship and dating but close study of <em>La Belle Dame qui eust mercy </em>and <em>Le Dialogue d’amoureux et de sa dame</em> can only enhance our understanding of the process(es) of poetic composition as well as the <em>mise en page</em> and reception of literary works in the late Middle Ages. </p><p><br /> </p>