La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Keats uses images in a meaningful way.   For example, the image of the rose creates an atmosphere of love and death because when the petals fall off, it represents the love dying and the thorns on the rose represents the fairy's personality and when the petals aren’t falling off it represents the knights love for the fairy being strong and hoping for the best. Also, the image of a 'fading' rose reflects the feelings of the loneliness and sadness because the knight is sad as the fairy has left him alone and his love for the fairy is dying, the rose is becoming paler because the love is slowly dying, like the kiss on his cheek which is fading away.
Another image Keats uses in a meaningful way is the ‘the sedge has withered from the lake’ which creates the atmosphere of loneliness and fading colour as the plants have lost colour and are dying which makes it look dull. Also the image of the lake creates the image of a lake with no colour and the water is dirty.
Keats uses images in a meaningful way.   For example, the image of the lily creates atmosphere of sadness and fading colour, the reason for this is in Keats’ ballad he talks about the rose fading, so when a rose fades a lily appears showing that the knight is slowly dying. So fading colours reflects the rose’s colours fading and is now turning white, and a lily replaces the rose for a white lily.   Also, the image of a lily reflects the feelings of tears because lily’s are mostly found at funerals and people cry at funeral for their friends and families (their loved ones), also they create the atmosphere of crying because when the lily’s are withered and are drooping, like a person lowering their head.

I think that LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI is not literary or traditional, it is a bit of both because it has a quatrain and is in verses, but there is not a rhyme scheme (ABAB or AABB).