1 : The Eve of St Agnes - quotes

St Agnes’ Eve -Ah, bitter chill it was! (I)

Dramatic caesura, excalamtive

’the owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; the hare limped through the frozen grass, and silent was the flock in woolly fold’

Fricative, isolated and suffering imagery, pathetic fallacy of the cold nature of the poem

‘Frosted breath, like pious incense from a censer old’

Imagery of his holy spirit leaving his body → foreshadowing death

Meagre, barefoot, wan

Asyndeton emphasises the misery of the beadsman’s life

The sculptured dead, on each side, seem to freeze, emprisoned in black, purgatorial rails

Liminal space, dark side of religion.

He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails to think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails

His faith falters as he thinks of people in purgatory → foreshadows the liminal area of the castle

Already had his deathbell rung

Idea of fate → themes of death and mortality

Silver snarling trumpets ‘gan to chide

Synaesthesia in musical imagery → overwhelming sound that juxtaposes both outside and Madelaine’s room

The carved angels, ever eager eyes, stared

Personification surrounding the castle → twisting the reality of the are and introducing theme of appearance vs reality

‘Argent revelry’ ‘shadows haunting faerily’

The spirits of the nobles opposing the beadsman

Of heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire

The charm of St Agnes’ eve is similar to a trance or dream-like state

Full of whim was this thoughtful Madeline

Oxymoronic ‘whim’ and ‘logic’ → proves that love can corrupt all

The music, yearning like God’s in pain

synaesthesia simile

Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day

Madeline has cool imagery surrounding her desire - juxtaposing Porphyro

‘Many came tiptoe’ ‘Her heart was otherwhere’

Madeline turns down reality for the promise of the ‘honeyed middle of the night’ - dreams vs. reality

Young Porphyro, with heart on fire for Madeline

Power of heat and passion - drives him through the darkness and cold to gain access to her

‘That he might gaze and worship all unseen’ ‘speak, kneal, touch, kiss’

Attempts to use religious connotations to build a facade of innocence - polysyndetic language swiftly follows to exhibit how his mind is quick to run away from him

‘no buzzed whisper tell’ ‘eyes be muffled’

Secrecy introduced surrounding Porphyro

‘A hundred swords will storm his heart’ ‘barbarian hordes’ ‘hot-blooded lords’

Madeline’s family already know of him → hold his lineage against him, wither painting a bad image of them, or perhaps of Porphyro

Weak in body and soul

Angela is described as having a weak soul - therefore easily manipulated by Porphyro

‘Old beldame’ ‘Aged creature’ ‘Palsied hand’ ‘A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing’

Weak and dehumanising depictions of Angela

‘cobwebs’ ‘little moonlight room’ ‘pale, latticed, chill’ ‘silent as a tomb’

The imagery of secrecy is maintained through darkness and cool imagery.

Yet men will still murder upon holy days

Mistreatment of women despite the protection of religion

Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon

Angela’s cynicism → perhaps is what leads to her demise

‘wicked men’ ‘sweet lady’ ‘good angels’

Angela is juxtaposing Madeline and Porphyro, likening Madeline to religious imagery

‘I will not harm her, by all saints I swear’ ‘my weak voice shall whisper it’s last prayer’

Porphyro manipulating religious imagery to change Angela’s mind

Faeries paced the coverlet, and pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyes

Enriched supernatural imagery → dreams are infiltrating reality

The lover’s endless minutes slowly passed

Oxymoronic ; displays the passion of Porphyro’s love for Madeline

‘I never leave my grave among the dead’ ‘agues in her brain’

Foreshadowing of Angela’s death

‘Silken, hushed and chaste’ ‘moonshine’ ‘spirits’ ‘visions’

Calm and quiet descriptions of Madeline’s room

Ring-dove frayed and fled

Fricative : passionate / ring-dove has imagery of collar on it’s neck, hints of entrapment perhaps?

A tongueless nightingale should swell, Her throat in vain, and die

Metaphor which encapsulates how Madeline feels suffocated - escapes to the coolness of her room (suffocated by society?)

Distorted images of nightingales which represent truth → their love is not reality

So pure a thing, so free from mortal taint

Idealised version of women (mistreatment). Suited to mystical situation

‘frees’ ‘unclasps’ ‘loosens’

Madeline leaves herself vulnerable by undressing

like a mermaid in sea-weed

Mystical imagery surrounding Madeline

‘She dreams awake’ ‘St Agnes in her bed’

Explicit blurring of dreams and reality

As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again

Idyllic yet false outlook on life → metaphor for the harshness of death and the desire to escape from it

‘the faded moon’ ‘St Agnes’ moon hath set’

As Madeline’s privacy is slowly poisoned the moons protection falters

‘Boisterous’ ‘Festive clarion’ ‘kettle-drum’

The loudness juxtaposes the secrecy of Porpyro’s actions

‘The hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone’

Emptiness and silence - Madeline is unprotected

‘candied apple’ ‘quince’ ‘gourd’ ‘creamy curd’

Porphyro prepares gifts for Madeline → extravagant alongside the yonic imagery

My love, my seraph fair, awake

White and pure imagery of Madeline

He took her hollow lute

Death to Madeline’s innocence - he is tainting lullabies and emphasising phallic imagery - sinister character

Her eyes were open, but she still beheld

Stuck in a liminal space between reality and dreams

There was a painful change, that night expelled the blisses of her dream

The cruel realisation that her dreams cannot be a reality

How changed thou art! How pallid, chill and drear!

LOL - reality is upsetting for Madeline, their love was structured around promised dreams rather than reality

‘Throbbing star’ ‘Flushed’ ‘Into her dream he melted’

Phallic imagery - moment of rape.

Melting into a false reality and poisoning her dreams as well as her reality

This is no dream ‘Tis dark’

Porphyro is aware that he must manipulate the dream with reality in order to keep Madeline’s love

Tis dark surrounds the claim - emphasises how he has invaded her privacy and that she is isolated and trapped

A dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing

Death of Madeline’s purity and innocence

A famished pilgrim - saved by miracle

Porphyro changes the extended metaphor to compare himself to a religious figure → paints him to be a good person

I will not rob thy nest

False claim that he will not do anything without her - mistreatment of women through gaslighting

‘Let us away my love, with happy speed’ ‘There are no eyes to hear, or eyes to see’ ‘Awake! Arise!’

Hurries Madeline → exclamative and secrecy

‘She hurried at his words, beset with fears’

Porphyro has successfully manipulated Madeline

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall

The death of certainty - supernatural imagery

These lovers fled away into the storm

Once again, run into uncertainty and danger

‘Angela the old died palsy-twitched’ ‘face deformed’

Sudden death introduces themes of fate → consequences of allowing Porphyro steal Madeline

‘The Beadsman’ ‘Slept among his ashes cold’

Eternal coldness for the working-class.

Cyclical structure

Shows the consequence of Madeline disappearing - cursed others to death