The 'story' of the poem is very simple and straightforward, as is the grammar. This is what we would expect for a ballad, of course (cf. also the simple couplet rhyme scheme and the refrain).
But the poem has a considerable resonance, and this is associated with the system of inter-stanza lexico-grammatical parallelisms and the breaks in those patterns (the internal deviations) which we have examined. These patterns and breaks in pattern lead us to an account of the poem which is almost like a set of medieval filming instructions. We travel along and then the pattern breaks (indicating foregrounding) and we move progressively inwards to the knight on the bed and those around him, suggesting that this is what we must concentrate on. The pattern breaks again here (more foregrounding) and we then focus more closely on the details of the knight we have already focused on and those around him, again suggesting large significance in relation to his death (it is here that the parallel with the tombs of medieval churches becomes clear). Finally, in the last stanza the pattern breaks again (the last set of foregroundings) and it is here that the key to the system of indications of significance is revealed: the knight is Christ.
Even though we have spent a long time on this poem, we have not exhausted it by an means. For example, there is a strong pattern of colours (brown, purple, black, gold, red) which are associated either with death or with kingship, and indeed these colours are interestingly linked together (for example 'gold so red' is a semantically deviant paradoxical construction which, in context, portrays kingly wealth in terms of death). We have also spent our time examining a 'generic' kind of interpretation for the poem in English culture. But it has also been argued that the poem had specific socio-political significance in the time in which it was written.
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