Analysing and comparing two poems: Shakespeare's 'Shall I compare thee to a Summer's Day' and John Keat's 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' shows two poets' conflicting views on love. People often fall in love with an illusion created by the media, in which beauty is the key asset needed for love to succeed. Consequently, true love is often confused with physical attraction. Keats takes a negative approach whereas Shakespeare takes a positive one, both using metaphors of nature to make their perception of love tangible to the reader.

The poems "First Love" by John Clare and "La Belle Dame sans Merci" by John Keats both describe the traditional image of love but then go on to describe it as a painful affliction. This attitude toward is compared to the philosophy of love in other poems.

Analyzes Keat's poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci." Describes how the work reveals Keats' personal "pleasure thermometer," which leads to Keats' idea of happiness.