In 2019 literary scholars Richard Marggraf Turley and Jennifer Squire proposed that the ballad may have been inspired by the tomb effigy of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel (d. 1376) in Chichester Cathedral. At the time of Keats' visit in 1819, the effigy stood mutilated and separated from that of Arundel's second wife, Eleanor of Lancaster (d. 1372), in the northern outer aisle. The figures were reunited and restored by Edward Richardson in 1843, and later inspired Philip Larkin's 1956 poem "An Arundel Tomb".[6][7][8]
Like the author's other 1819 poems such as “Ode to a Nightingale,” “On Melancholy,” and “On Indolence,” the poem was written at the heat of Keats' passion for his fiancée Fanny Brawne. This is why some critics think that its theme partly reflects their relationship.[9] However, critics such as Amy Lowell argue that "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is not biographical[10] and that it is "not connected, except in the most general way, with Keats himself and Fanny Brawne.”
