The Eve of St. Agnes

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1820

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context

Keats wrote “The Eve of St. Agnes” in 1819, the prolific year in which he wrote his great masterpieces. He would spend this year writing his six odes, as well as the narrative poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”—the early inspiration of which is Porphyro playing it for Madeline on his lute. This burst of inspiration from Keats might have come from the fact that he knew his death was not far away, having been trained as a doctor and recognizing the signs of tuberculosis eating away at his body. Death, dreams, and passion are all central themes of this poem.

This work represents the trend of longer works romanticizing myths and legends, mixing religion with the supernatural and championing doomed love. Alfred, Lord Tennyson published “The Lady of Shalott” in 1832, a retelling of a snapshot of Arthurian myth. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”) and Sir Walter Scott (“The Lady of the Lake”) both embraced this romantic narrative tradition. Although the trends of literature of the day welcomed these narrative sagas, there are clear influences from the much earlier The Faerie Queene (1590) by Edmund Spenser. Keats embraces the form and rhythm widely attributed to this poem.

These romantic narratives crafted by Keats and his contemporaries reflect a response to the more clinical, rational poetry that came out of the Enlightenment era a century earlier. While science and its relationship with the arts was on the rise, these poets sought to reclaim the mystery and magic of their literary ancestors like Spenser and Shakespeare. The repression of the Georgian and Victorian eras welcomed the sensuality and passion of Keats’s work.

Ekphrastic Analysis

Generally, ekphrasis refers to literature inspired by or reflecting a work of art. However, the term can refer to any artistic medium that celebrates another work. “The Eve of St. Agnes” is an inversion of traditional ekphrasis in that it went on to inspire several notable artistic creations.

Between the years of 1848 and 1863, four pieces of visual art were created based on Keats’s poem. Arthur Hughes, James Smetham, and John Everett Millais all named their works “The Eve of St. Agnes.” Hughes created a triad of three scenes from the poem with oil paint, with the poem’s sixth stanza carved into its gold frame (1856); Smetham used ink and watercolor to illustrate the two lovers escaping from the castle (1858); and Millais used oils and later watercolor to depict Madeline preparing for her rite (1863). In the same time period, William Holman Hunt created “The Flight of Madeline and Porphyro” (1848), another oil painting. The final escape of the two central characters seems to be a favorite in these visual works, with it featuring as the third of Hughes’ triad.

Several decades later, in 1923, the stained-glass artist Harry Clarke was commissioned to create a window for a home in Dublin. Clarke suggested several fairy tales and plays as the basis for the project, and he and the client agreed upon Keats’s “The Eve of St. Agnes.” Clarke created a masterpiece of 14 panels, each depicting a different scene and accompanying quotation. The work was completed in 1924 and today hangs in the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin as one of its proudest acquisitions.

In 1902, the author Rudyard Kipling (best known for The Jungle Book) took another approach and wrote an original short story inspired by Keats’s poem. “Wireless” follows a character who experiments with shortwave radio, only to accidentally channel Keats’s ghost as he composes “The Eve of St. Agnes.”

Though the plot of this poem is simple, it has a timeless and dreamlike romanticism that makes it an ideal subject to explore through other artistic mediums. It is firmly rooted in a fantastical time that never was, yet its broad themes of passionate love and the border of reality and dreaming persist in many of our most beloved stories. The excitement surrounding Keats’s romantic-era narrative poetry in the 19th and early-20th centuries illustrates the movement towards literary inspiration, the natural world, and the inclusion of supernatural forces that celebrated mortality and love.