the eve of st agnes quotes

“Half anguished”

• love is deep - pain

“Elfin storm from faery land”

• he has a false sense of security

“Shone the wintry moon”

• Contrast to “warm gules” this reflects the passionate idyllic love of porphyro and Madeline and the contrast with icy world of reality

• Pathetic fallacy

“Pallid moonshine died”

• gothic imagery

• Light from the moon is weak - death like

“I will not harm her by all saints i swear”

• porphyro poetic language - charms Angela into trusting him

• Reader question whether he is a noble hero with pure intentions or simply deceptive

• “Full blown rose”

• “Purple”

• the rose symbolises porphyro’s entrapment in his own passion

• Purple connotation - passion

• Burning with passion and dangerous - foreshadows the events that will bring his punishment and damnation in hell

• “gaze”

• “Worship”

• “Kneel”

• religious comment - worshipping her

• Desperate to associate himself with her

“Buttressed from moonlight… implores all saints to give him sight of Madeline”

• he is intent of winning Madeline’s heart

• Hiding from moonlight

• Lack of consent - predatory

“With heart on fire”

• confidence, arrogance and certainty - contrast to Madeline

“Danced along with vague regardless eyes”

• perhaps presenting her as a victim - can be easily tricked - foreshadowing?

“Yearning like a god in path”

• simile shows her longing

• Her desire as both divine and suffering creating an ironic tension between the spiritual purity of her ritual and the intensity of her longing while contributing to the poem’s heightened and unsettling atmosphere

“She knelt for heaven’s grace and boon”

• she praying for mercy and forgiveness

• Religious imagery Is used

• Keats highlighting Madeline worship of the ritual

• Kneeling Madeline is in a submissive position making her vulnerable

• “Rose like a missioned spirit”

• “like ring-clove frayed and fixed”

• implies Madeline is rising upwards like a saint - implies innocence and purity

• Dove symbol purity and peace

“Whose passing bell may ere the midnight tail”

• Angela death is foreshadowed through similar description and likeness to the beadsman; feeble and serving others. The bell signified the beadsman death

“Who keepth closed a wondorous riddle-book“

• suggest he is fascinated by Madeline and his desire for her is heightened by the fact she is out of reach like a closed riddle book - what he can’t have seems more appealing

• Foreshadows the predatory behaviour that porphyro demostrates towards her

“And be liege - lord of all the elves and fays”

• Angela is surprised that he got past the party goers and entered the castle unnoticed - suggest capable of witchcraft

“Silent as a tomb”

• connations of imprisonment”

• Entrapped in their love? Can’t escape it — like they cannot escape their inevitable deaths

• Simile suggests that all life has been taken out of the room - symbolises death.

“Flit like a ghost away”

• foreshadowing

• “They glide like phantoms”

“Her maiden eyes divine”

• indicates Madeline’s virginity and her focus and determination on the ritual

“Those chambers held barbrain hordes”

• as in Romeo and Juliet it is implied that porphyro and Madeline families are feeding - making their relationship dangerous