Meg Merrilies

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1818

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Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

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Themes

Romantic Individualism and the “Gypsy”

In “Meg Merrilies,” Keats deploys the 19th-century stereotype of the “Gipsy” as a symbol of Romantic freedom, as did many authors of his age. Problematic echoes of these treatments carry down into our own day. The word “gypsy” is now considered a slur by some Romani people, in no small part because these literary representations othered Romani women as wild, foreign, or seductive (e.g., Victor Hugo’s Esmerelda, Georges Bizet’s Carmen).

Meg’s identity as a Roma woman functions on two levels in “Meg Merrilies”: personal and literary. On a personal level, Meg was a natural subject for Keats on his walking tour. Unlike many literary Roma, Meg is Scottish rather than English, and Keats was enamored with the Scottish countryside at the time of composition. He might have seen something of himself, too, in Meg’s itinerant lifestyle. As she wandered the moors, living “as she did please,” so did he (Line 12). Though Keats’s doctor warned him against making such a journey, the poet indulged in a spur-of-the-moment, spontaneous decision to go to Scotland anyway, an act of rebellion he explores in his poem, “There was a naughty boy.” Though Keats alludes to the topic playfully, this air of criminality is a common stereotype against Romani people.

On a thematic level, the “gypsy” became shorthand in Romantic literature for the prioritization of individual freedom over establishment convention. In a pushback against the rationalism and order imposed by the Enlightenment, the Romantics zeroed in on authentic personal experiences. They urged a return to nature and championed a sense of responsibility to one’s fellow man over capitalistic exploitation.

Meg is the Romantic ideal in that she achieves freedom while also maintaining a close connection to nature and to other people. Though Meg has little, she also requires little, and so, demands nothing. She lives an existence completely unfettered by the need for material things, and as a result, her innate kindness is given room to shine. In this light, Keats’s situating of Meg in the distant past (“She died full long agone!”, Line 30) might represent the poet’s bleak assessment of the present. Such a person, he hints, could no longer exist in society as it stands.

“Old Meg”: The Autumn of Life

Because the Romantics loved to write on love, it should come as no surprise that women—particularly young and beautiful women—often featured in poetry of the genre. Women in Romantic poetry are usually angelic, young, and in some way unattainable, whether because of societal barriers or their own untimely demise (on the later, see especially Edgar Allan Poe). Accommodating the melancholic tone of Romantic literature—and, less charitably, misogynistic attitudes of the 19th century—women in Romantic poetry are often characterized by their suffering. In some sense, Keats shares this with his fellow Romantics; Meg did not lead an easy life. However, in contrast to his contemporaries, Keats does not shy away from the realistic portrayal of older, mature women in his poetry, nor from details of their physicality.

That Meg is “old” is the first thing Keats wants us to know of her; it is the first word of the entire poem. While “old” can be a term of endearment (like “old chap”), it seems more likely that Meg is literally old, both because Walter Scott’s character was a matriarch, and because Keats mentions physical details that suggest her advanced age (her fingers, Line 21; her bones, Line 29). Keats uses Meg’s physicality not to repulse us, but to heighten our sense of pathos for her. By highlighting her “fingers old and brown,” he invites us to imagine her slow, arthritic motion, her skin weathered by years in the sun. Her “aged bones,” too, sympathetically evoke the brittle, delicate nature of the body in old age.

However, Meg’s advanced years should not imply she is weak. Keats compares her first to a queen and then, more strikingly still, to an Amazon, the fearsome warrior women of Greek mythology. Amazons are characterized both by their physical strength and a certain martial pride and indefatigability. Meg’s clothes are old and worn, but her blanket is red—a color associated with royalty and vitality. Meg, Keats emphasizes, was as strong as she was generous.

Keats’s positive portrayal of older women might find its source in his maternal grandmother, Alice Jennings, who heroically took on the responsibility of raising Keats and his siblings after the death of their father and mother. There were other powerful older women in Keats’s life, too. One of his lovers, Isabella Jones, was 18 years his senior, and Keats was reportedly close with the mothers of his female confidants, Georgiana Wylie and Fanny Brawne. Meg is not alone in finding a sympathetic portrayal in Keats. Mnemosyne and Moneta, major characters in his poems Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream, respectively, are also physically impressive, generous older women.