Melania perhaps serene before getting knocked out by love (7)
I believe the answer is:
slovene
'melania perhaps serene before getting knocked' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'out by love' is the wordplay.
'out' indicates putting letters inside.
'by' becomes 'sne' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'sne' going around 'love' is 'SLOVENE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for slovene that I've seen before include "Southern European" , "Native of Ljubljana" , "One from Ljubljana" , "Language" , "Central European" .)