Everything about The Eve Of St Agnes totally explained
» This article is about the poem by John Keats. For information on the saint, see Saint Agnes.
"The Eve of St. Agnes" is a long poem (42 stanzas) by
John Keats, written in
1819 and published in
1820. It is widely considered to be amongst his finest poems and was influential in 19th century literature.
The title comes from the day (or evening) before the
feast of
Saint Agnes (or
St. Agnes' Eve). St. Agnes, the patron saint of virgins, died a martyr in fourth century Rome. The eve falls on
January 20; the feast day on the
21. The divinations referred to by Keats in this poem are referred to by
John Aubrey in his
Miscellanies (1696) as being associated with St. Agnes' night.
Background
Keats based his poem on the superstition that a girl could see her future husband in a dream if she performed certain rites on the eve of St. Agnes; if she went to bed without looking behind her and lay on her back with her hands under her head, he'd appear in her dream, kiss her, and feast with her.
In the original version of this poem, Keats emphasized the young lovers' sexuality, but his publishers, who feared public reaction, forced him to tone down the eroticism.
Plot
As the story begins, we see a beadsman perform his prayers and penances under an extremely cold weather while a revelry is taking place in the heroine’s Gothic castle. Next we learn that Madeline, the heroine, resolves to follow the superstition of St. Agnes’ Eve by retiring to her room for proper rituals while Porphyro, her beloved youth, risks his life in coming over to see her. Madeline's family are enemies of his own, but they're distracted by drunkenness, so Porphyro successfully evades them, with the help of Madeline's elderly servant Angela.
Hiding in the room, Porphyro watches as Madeline undresses for bed. He prepares a feast for her while she sleeps. She half-awakes, thinking she sees him in a dream, then the two lovers turn dream into reality by consummating their love then and there. They escape together from the house at dawn while Madeline's drunken relatives carouse. Finally the story ends with the information that the couple fled away into the storm while Angela and the Beadsman both die.
Further Information
Get more info on 'The Eve Of St Agnes'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://the_eve_of_st__agnes.totallyexplained.com">The Eve of St. Agnes Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
