The Eve Of St.agnes Series

The following sample essay on the eve of St.agnes Series. This is a passage from earlier in the poem, and refers to the Beadsman, an ancient holy man who prayed for the souls of sinners all his life. It uses contrasts of colour, sound, and also life and death. In the first line, the music is described as ‘soft’, however the trumpets are later described as ‘snarling’. On one hand, this gives the trumpets themselves life, but it also makes them seem somehow unwelcoming, harsh and angry.

The silver trumpets also contrast with an earlier description of ‘Music’s golden tongue’. Is the prelude soft, warm and golden or cold and silver?

Normally Keats refers to music as a beautiful thing, however it seems the Beadsman is annoyed and angered by it. His stony, cold silence is invaded by the chaotic music when the doors are opened, again a reference to the contrasting outside world breaking in, and contrast between the icy cold stone walls of the chapel and the rich, ‘glowing’ warm chambers outside.

Keats then goes on to describe the carved stone angels in the chapel, not still, lifeless and frozen, but somehow alive and ‘ever eager-eyed’, waiting for guests with almost flowing hair blown back.

However, beneath all these images of liveliness and music, there is an underlying sense of absence and emptiness. People ‘hurry to and fro’ preparing, the glowing chambers are ready to welcome people, the angels are ever eager, watching for someone or something, but nothing happens.

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The whole castle seems frozen in time, perpetually waiting to come alive, and it is only in the next paragraph that life and chaos bursts inside. ‘Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set A table, and, half anguish’d, threw thereon.

O for some drowsy Morphean amulet! The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion, The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet, Affray his ears, though but in dying tone:- The hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone. ‘ There are two main contrasts here; that of colour and light again, but more importantly the contrast between the outsiders’ loud, merry revelry and Porphyro’s silent and perverse desire to keep Madeline asleep. Notice how the moon is no longer bright and glaring, but ‘faded’ and ‘dim’. There is no glamour or brilliance in this passage, and Porphyro’s intentions are clearly not at all wholesome.

The imagery here is very real; you can almost sense the pure silver blue light shrouding the sleeping maiden, and the dim purity of her room being invaded by the passionate and deep ‘crimson, gold, and jet’. Whereas the first half of this stanza is full of still, silent and pale images, the second half describes the loud, chaotic music from the feast penetrating the silent sanctum of her room. The wicked Porphyro begs for a ‘Morphean amulet’, Morpheus being the God of sleep, and when the hall door is opened, he becomes afraid that Madeline will awaken and ruin his twisted, voyeuristic fun.

In this passage, we really see the other side of Porphyro; that which has no chivalric morals, and acts like a thief in the dark, coming to ‘rob her nest’. In other passages, he has been honourable at least on the outside, speaking of courtly love and marriage, and swearing upon the saints, but here we see the true, scheming Porphyro. However, there is an underlying foreboding and sense of death in this passage. Even before Madeline awakes, the sky is already fading into darkness, the twilight is no longer bright and the one element of life, the music, is described as ‘in dying tone’ as the hall door shuts it out.

This is probably the first unsettling hint that no matter how young, innocent and beautiful you are, nothing is really sacred, and the cold death of outside is a constant reminder to this. Behind what seems on the outside a classic romantic tale of love having no bounds, wooing in secret and beautiful colours, music, and courtly love, lies the story of a man lacking morality, and looking to corrupt the innocence of a helpless beautiful maiden.