John Bell, Fall 2007
John Keats’ poem “The Eve of St. Agnes” reads like a fairy tale. Its plot centers upon the legend that a young lady will meet her future husband if she performs a ritual on the eve of the feast day of St. Agnes. In the poem, the central figure, Madeline, actually meets her destined lover and runs away with him at the conclusion. The language is beautiful, the story simple, reminding the reader of countless bedtime stories in which a young princess falls in love with a mysterious hero. Normally, a feminist reading of this poem might not be able to elaborate upon much more than the poem’s clichéd portrayal of a woman finding her knight in shining armor to sweep her off her feet.
And yet, I could not shake the idea that Keats intended deeper meanings within his work, with the simple story acting as a shiny glaze covering themes that might not be deemed acceptable within a poem about a young woman written in the 19th century (even if the poem’s setting evokes medieval times). When the reader closely observes the text, it becomes clear that Keats takes a stand against the status and expectations of women in the 19th century, and advocating independence for women: freedom of thought, choice, and sexuality.
The poem begins coldly, quite literally:
St. Agnes’ Eve- Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers was a-cold
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in the woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told (Keats, 1. 1-5).
Keats’ language creates a vision of bleak iciness, with use of words such as “cold”, “frozen” and “chill”. Furthermore, use of the words “numb”, “trembling” and “silent” complete a picture of, not just a cold world, but a hopeless one, and not the opening one would expect from a romantic story. The cold exterior, described in such great detail before any mention of the interior in which the poem, for the most part, takes place, creates a prison-like effect. Within this bitter prison resides Madeline, the young woman at the center of the poem. Tonight she participates in the ritual of the Eve of St. Agnes, which, if successful, will allow her to dream of her future husband. Upon her introduction, the poem reveals Madeline to be jaded by the society in which she lives:
Fix’d on the floor, saw many a sweeping train
Pass by—she heeded not at all: in vain
Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier
And back retir’d; not cool’d by high disdain
But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:
She sigh’d for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year” (7. 55-63).
The seventh stanza tells all that needs to be known about Madeline’s life, which consists of being paraded in front of countless suitors who lust over her, only to be turned away. Madeline finds solace in her disenchanting life on the night of St. Agnes’eve, when she dreams of her love, Porphyro.
As the poem continues, Porphyro makes an appearance, during which he makes his way into Madeline’s bedchamber and hides, waiting for her to fall asleep. His observation of Madeline as she prepares for bed provides images that are a stark contrast to the frigidity of the poem’s opening:
As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest
And on her silver cross soft amethyst
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven:
-Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. (25. 219-25)
Now, I understand that this passage, beautiful it may be, possibly offers an objectifying view of Madeline, assigning to her value based on her purity. However, its placement, directly before Madeline’s union with Porphyro, provides a moment of warmth and peace for a character who has been held down by the binds of her society. The soothing language, utilizing assonance (moon, boon, bloom) has a pillow-like effect on the reader, offering comfort in contrast to the environment portrayed thus far. The poem portrays Madeline as an angelic figure, trapped within a cold hell. Soon after she falls asleep, Madeline reunites with Porphyro: “‘Ah, Porphyro!’ said she, ‘but even now/Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear/Made tuneable with every sweetest vow’” (Keats, 35. 307-09). The lovers’ escape from the castle truncates their blissful reunion, and in doing so Madeline takes her final step in achieving freedom.
The final stanzas of the poem detail the nighttime escape of the two lovers:
She hurried at his words, beset with fears
For there were sleeping dragons all around
At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears
Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found
In all the house was heard no human sound. (Keats, 40. 352-6)
The already oppressive portrayal of Madeline’s home takes on a downright sinister tone now. The poem makes clear the seriousness of Madeline’s actions; she deliberately defies her society’s expectations of her in running away with Porphyro. No romantic flourish exists in the language which continues to detail their escape:
In all the house was heard no human sound
A chain-droop’d lamp was flickering by each door
The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound
Flutter’d in the besieging wind’s uproar
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor. (Keats, 40. 356-60)
Again, the image of the ice storm which raged at the poem’s beginning appears. The warm comfort of Madeline’s bedchamber, her one place of solace as she prayed in preparation for this night, gives way to the reintroduction of the cold winter. Madeline and Porphyro go, not into paradise, but “away into the storm” (Keats 42. 371). Madeline completes her rejection of her suppressed life.
Keats does not succeed entirely in his portrayal of Madeline from a feminist standpoint. She does not actively pursue independence, needing to be reunited with her lover to gain the confidence needed to abandon her suppressed life. Additionally, one cannot avoid the voyeuristic, male-point-of-view aspect of the 26th stanza, as Porphyro watches Madeline undress for bed: “Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees/ Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one/ Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees/ Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees” (Keats 26. 227-30). However, “The Eve of St. Agnes” undeniably portrays a woman taking a stand against the constraints placed upon women at the time of the poem’s writing. In a time when a woman’s virginity was her most prized virtue, and women were allowed but one night a year to dream of their future husbands, Madeline takes the initiative to run away with her lover in the night.
Drawing from that, there lies another reason for Keats’ failure to portray Madeline as a truly independent woman; he did, in fact, write a more self-confident character with Madeline. According to Jacqueline Banerjee, Keats was censored over his intended portrayal of Madeline:
It’s not surprising, then, to learn that special pressure was put on Keats to keep this particular poem “fit for ladies”. A rewriting which sought to give it more realism by offering Madeline the prospect of… quite obviously enjoying the embraces of her future husband, disturbed his friend Richard Woodhouse and alarmed his publisher John Taylor. “I will not be an accessary… towards publishing anything which can be only read by Men”, declaimed the latter. (Banerjee 539)
The censorship which Keats faced in attempting to portray a woman aware of her own sexuality explains why scenes which could have been sensual or erotic, such as the reunion of Porphyro and Madeline, and portraying Madeline as sexually independent woman are instead brushed over. As Banerjee states: “The sexual nature of their union not only disappears into ambiguous words and coy similes, but also sink under weighty intimations of spirituality” (Banerjee 539). Keats faced strict limitations in his portrayal of Madeline. While finding freedom in Porphyro fails from a feminist perspective, Porphyro presents a clear alternative to Madeline’s current life, which involves going through the motions of being presented as an item for sale to suitors. Usually, feminists would not view a portrayal of romantic love which ends with the maiden running away with the man of her dreams positively, but John Keats still must be admired for challenging the perceptions of a woman’s place in 19th century society.
Works Cited
Banjeree, Jacqueline. “Mending the Butterfly: The New Historicism and Keats’s ‘Eve of St. Agnes”.” College English. 1995. 529-545.
Keats, John. “The Eve of St. Agnes”. The Poems of John Keats. Ed. Jack Stillinger. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1979.