The Eve of St Agnes

Question 1

Possible Tragic hero status because of his great amount of love for Madeline that pushes his character through the story.

Answer 1

“Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire for Madeline.”

Question 2

Tragic Hero role - the idea that Porphyro will be happy if he sees Madeline for a matter of moments.

Answer 2

“But for one moment in the tedious hours, that he might gaze and worship all unseen.”

Question 3

Tragic Hero/ Status - Shows there are certain things against Porphyro and that Madeline’s father does not approve of him. Making the reader root for Porphyro and want him to succeed as he is possibly seen as an outsider. And has fate/ the odds against him

Answer 3

“Whose very dogs would execrations howl against his lineage.”

Question 4

Tragic Hero/ Status - Shows there are certain things against Porphyro and that Madeline’s father does not approve of him. Making the reader root for Porphyro and want him to succeed as he is possibly seen as an outsider. And has fate/ the odds against him
“the aged creature came, shuffling along”
Tragic Victim - Introduction to Angela doesn’t make her seem human. It also makes her appear weak and at the end of her days. Possible foreshadowing of death.

Answer 4

“the aged creature came, shuffling along”

Question 5

Angela’s disbelief in Porphyros plan.

Answer 5

“A cruel man and impious thou art.”

Question 6

Tragic Villain - suggests Porphyro to possibly be two faced and have a darker side/ motive to his plan to see Madeline.

Answer 6

“Thous canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem.”

Question 7

Makes Porphyro seem more of a hero.

Answer 7

“I will not harm her, by all saints I swear.”

Question 8

Tragic Hero - Porphyro saying he won’t forgive himself if he hurts her.

Answer 8

“My weak voice shall whisper its last prayer, if one of her soft ringlets I displace.”

Question 9

Angela has become a pawn/accomplice in Porphyro’s plan to get Madeline.

Answer 9

“Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe”

Question 10

Tragic Villain - Porphyro has other motives than just seeing Madeline. Makes him seem shady and supsicious.

Answer 10

“And perhaps that night a peerless bride.”

Question 11

Foreshadowing of Angela’s death.

Answer 11

“Ah! thou must needs the lady wed, or may I never leave my grave amoung the dead.”

Question 12

Violent imagery, contrast the intimacy of the scene in Madelines bedroom

Answer 12

“blushed with blood of queens and kings.”

Question 13

Description of Madeline

Answer 13

“Madeline’s fair breast”

Question 14

Madeline - makes her sound innocent and pure.

Answer 14

“and on her hair a glory, like a saint.”

Question 15

Shows Porphyro’s feelings towards Madeline but also appears creepy because he’s hiding in her wardrobe watching her.

Answer 15

“Porphyro grew faint.”

Question 16

This is an explanation of the tradition associated with St. Agnes’s Eve. On this night, young women were thought to be able to gain a glimpse of their future spouses by performing a series of rituals and saying prayers.

Answer 16

“Upon St. Agnes’ Eve, / Young virgins might have visions of delight, / And soft adorings from their loves receive. “

Question 17

Many men tried to gain Madeline’s attention, but they were all rebuffed. The speaker notes this is not because of arrogance, but because her thoughts were elsewhere. Since it is St. Agnes’s Eve, she expects to go to bed and see the face of her future husband in a vision or dream. One possibility is that she is hoping to see the face of Porphyro, a young man who is in love with her though that love is forbidden by their feuding families. Another is that she is simply swept up in romantic notions of seeing her future lover’s face in the night.

Answer 17

“In vain / Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier, / … But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere. “

Question 18

Porphyro is praying to all saints—not just St. Agnes—to give him a glimpse of the woman he’s interested in wooing. Unlike Madeline, he is seeking not a dream, but an actual encounter with her.

Answer 18

“Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and implores / All saints to give him sight of Madeline. “

Question 19

The old woman, Angela, warns Porphyro that the castle is dangerous for him. She tells him to leave, as many men there wish to do him harm. While the nature of the opposition to Porphyro is not clarified, it can be assumed he should avoid the “blood-thirsty” men.

Answer 19

“Hie thee from this place; / They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race!”

Question 20

Angela acknowledges that Madeline is in danger or at least that her virtue is in danger. She warns Porphyro she will face damnation (never leave her grave, or see the resurrection of the dead promised to Christians) for her part in his plan if he is untrustworthy. Angela seems convinced that the two lovers belong together and should be married, and she is willing to help that cause. But she gives him a reminder here to preserve Madeline’s reputation. This interaction shows the great value all involved place upon Madeline’s chastity; her purity is crucial to Porphyro’s feelings about her. Yet strangely her virtue is not valuable enough to keep Porphyro away from her. The poem seems to present an instance of situational irony, when the result of a situation is different from readers’ expectations. Madeline’s virginity is prized even as Porphyro intends to take it from her.

Answer 20

“Thou must needs the lady wed, / Or may I never leave my grave among the dead.”

Question 21

Despite the risk to Madeline, Angela leads Porphyro through shadowed rooms to Madeline’s personal room. He’s pleased to be there and hides himself to watch her disrobe, pray, sleep, and dream. His actions are invasive, and Angela seems to be a willing participant in this rather frightening scenario. Even though the overall story line feels quite romantic, with young lovers running off to be together, more sinister images such as this one pervade the poem as well. The tonal contrast gives a moral ambiguity to the characters and the situation and reminds readers that the beautiful dream (romantic love) can give way to cold reality (invasive stalker).

Answer 21

“Through many a dusky gallery, they gain / The maiden’s chamber, silken, hush’d, and chaste; / Where Porphyro took covert, pleas’d amain.”

Question 22

Madeline prays as jewel-toned light illuminates her. The light comes from the moon, shining through a stained glass window. It falls on her cross and her hair in such a way that her hair appears to be a halo. The speaker describes her as if she is a painting of a saint, an icon to be worshipped rather than a woman with a will of her own. This image is both beautiful and unsettling, as it expresses Porphyro’s passionate feeling for her but also objectifies her.

Answer 22

“Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, / And on her silver cross soft amethyst, / And on her hair a glory, like a saint.”

Question 23

The ritual dictates that Madeline cannot look behind her, which aids Porphyro. Madeline is not observant of her surroundings, and as a result she is thoroughly unaware she is being watched in this private moment in her bedchamber. The ritual, designed to show her future husband, allows the young man to come to her in reality.

Answer 23

“She dreams awake, and sees, / In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed, / But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.”

Question 24

Porphyro is in a “paradise” he has entered without permission. He looks at the dress she left behind when she disrobed and listens to her breathing as she begins to sleep. These lines show how Keats implies sensuality through images without using explicit language. Here Keats lets the reader imagine Madeline’s naked body through Porphyro’s eyes as he looks at the empty dress. Later, Keats will discuss how Porphyro “melts” into her dream of him, implying but not stating a physical coming together. These lines also raise the tension the reader may experience at the thought of Madeline’s fate, since he is certainly taking some liberties with her by spying on her while she sleeps.

Answer 24

“Stol’n to this paradise, and so entranced, / Porphyro gaz’d upon her empty dress, / And listen’d to her breathing.”

Question 25

Porphyro here calls Madeline his angel (“seraph”). This is just one of many religious images he associates with her. His first glimpse of Madeline is described as if she is a saint at prayer, and multiple times he refers to her as an angel. He approaches her not just as a man approaching a woman, but as a supplicant or worshipper approaching the object of devotion. Throughout the poem he describes his devotion and longing for her in spiritual terms, even though he clearly wants her physically as well. The experiences of religious longing and romantic longing are intertwined.

Answer 25

“And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake! / Thou art my heaven.”

Question 26

The song Porphyro plays for Madeline on the lute has the same title as a poem John Keats published in 1819, “La Belle Dame sans Merci.” The poem is about a knight who suffers a tragic fate after being seduced by a fairy woman. The fairy woman brings the knight into a dream world, in which he sees all the woman’s previous lovers, now dead. When he awakes from the nightmare, he is on a cold hillside. This is not the most romantic choice for a lover’s song, but it does echo some of the images in the “The Eve of St Agnes,” such as the presence of dreams, the cold outdoors, and a potentially cold and tragic end.

Answer 26

“He play’d an ancient ditty, long since mute, / In Provence call’d, “La belle dame sans mercy.””

Question 27

For Madeline, waking from her dream of Porphyro to the real man is a transition from the beautiful dream to a cold reality that is closer to death than life. He is described as one might describe a ghost or corpse: pallid, chill. The poem suggests that the dream is more alive than living beings; mortality is never far from those in the flesh, while the imagination lives on.

Answer 27

“How chang’d thou art! How pallid, chill, and drear!”

Question 28

When Madeline wakes and is dismayed, Porphyro tells her she is awake. More to the point, he refers to her as his bride. By being alone with her in her bedroom, he has compromised her virtue and assured she will wed him. Porphyro calling Madeline his bride also alludes to the possibility the two lovers have had sex.

Answer 28

“This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!”

Question 29

Porphyro encourages Madeline to be brave and tells her he has a home for her. She must run away with him across the moors (wilderness areas) in the dark of the night. This is a reminder that while what the lovers do might be romantic and exciting, there is an element of risk. She is leaving her home in the dead of night and fleeing over the cold moors against the wishes of her family. Madeline’s situation as a young woman is entirely dependent on the men around her.

Answer 29

“Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be, / For o’er the southern moors I have a home for thee.”

Question 30

While the characters are referred to as “lovers,” their future is left unstated. Their story ends with the couple crossing a boggy landscape on a dark and stormy night in winter. This uncertain ending might suggest that the lovers meet an unhappy end. It might alternatively suggest that, like the two elderly characters who die at the end of the poem, the lovers will eventually be dead and gone, the fate of all mortals.

Answer 30

“And they are gone: ay, ages long ago / These lovers fled away into the storm.”