#eve of st agnes

[preraphaelitepaintings]

Madeleine Undressing – Eve of St Agnes

Artist: John Everett Millais (English, 1829–1896)

Date: 1863

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Royal Collection, London, United Kingdom

Description

The Eve of St. Agnes is a Romantic narrative poem of 42 Spenserian stanzas set in the Middle Ages. It was written by John Keats in 1819 and published in 1820. The poem was considered by many of Keats's contemporaries and the succeeding Victorians to be one of his finest and was influential in 19th-century literature.

The title comes from the day (or evening) before the feast of Saint Agnes (or St. Agnes' Eve). St. Agnes, the patron saint of virgins, died a martyr in 4th-century Rome. The eve falls on 20 January; the feast day on the 21st. The divinations referred to by Keats in this poem are referred to by John Aubrey in his Miscellanies (1696) as being associated with St. Agnes' night.

[caedmonofwhitby]

The Eve of St Agnes, 1858

Arthur Hughes (1832–1915)

Oil on paper on panel

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

The triptych illustrates three episodes of Keats's poem of the same title.

On the left, Porphyro is shown into Madeline's chamber by her nurse; in the centre, Madeline wakes from her dream and finds her imaginary lover is real; on the right, the pair escape from the castle.

The panels are arranged like a medieval altarpiece

[girlintheafternoon]

She saw not: her heart was otherwhere.

John Keats, "The Eve of St. Agnes" (1820)

[emjee]

ALL FUCKED UP ON ROMANTICISM

[witcheslovemooses]

Happy Saint Agnes eve my loves <3

[gutstring]

[blackhyena]

John Keats, ‘The Eve of St. Agnes’.

[aquietjune]

Little Bird Revision Update

I will need some more days to ensure the consistency of the overall plot and the pacing, so my current plan is to post Chapter 4 on Tuesday at the latest. The week has been quite hectic and I had to skip a couple of editing sessions for lack of mental energy alone; the plan is to recharge and get at it during the weekend. In the meantime, I thank you all for your patience, and, again, for your kind support and feedback. It means a lot.

On a brighter note, as I’m going through the story once again for this round of revision my mind is finally able to detect the points where intervention is needed, and I’m looking forward especially to the writing of new scenes. That was expected, so the important thing now is to have the time and patience to work on it.

That’s it for now! Be well and please enjoy this beautiful illustration by Harry Clarke ✨

[frecht]

normal that the harry clarke room was closed and NOT moping around the art gallery with a cartoonish frown on my face:(

[richiesnotaloserguyscmon]

okay so really funny side rant but I’m having a crisis about this

@alexx-87 @edgarallanpoesbestie @miss-morgans-lover don’t come for me for this

but basically in English Literature we’re studying John Keats’ work and the poem we’re currently reviewing is The Eve of St Agnes. In the poem, a young woman called Madeline, my name, same spelling and all, who performs the ritual of the Feast of St Agnes (for those who don’t know, the Feast of St Agnes is an old Christian ritual that takes place on January 21st where young women won’t eat and then they’ll sleep naked, facing the heavens and in their dreams their future husbands will visit them and feast with them and kiss) and whilst she is performing this ritual, Porphyro sneaks into her room and convinces her to run away with him.

But the name is not the only things that weirds me out:

• Madeline has blue eyes: “Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone” I also have blue eyes

• Depending on how you perceive Porphyro, you can interpret him as a hero from saving Madeline from her singing family, whom she feels trapped with (I feel trapped with my family, scared of disappointing them)

• She cries when she sees Porphyro, because he’s not as handsome as she wanted him to be. This is such a me thing to do. 

• She has vivid dreams about her future which recently has been happening to me since before we even started working on this poem.

• Four people have told me I look like this rendition of Madeline in this painting:

THIS ISNT A JOKE GUYS 😭😭 I THINK I WAS PROPHESIED BY JOHN KEATS 200 YEARS AGO

[maypoleman1]

20th January

St Agnes’ Eve

The Cwn Annwn. Source: Pinterest, posted by Michele Biery

Today is St Agnes’ Eve and a good night to avoid the woods of Wales. The demonic hounds of the faerie realm, known as the Cwn Annwn are abroad, recognisable by their distinctive white coats, red ears and red eyes. Although otherworldly (they are believed to be the souls of the damned), these spectral hounds are nonetheless a very physical manifestation, capable of hunting down stags as a pack and will react badly to any human interloper who attempts to interfere with their kill. Equally, the hounds can sometimes manifest as a single dog, howling mournfully. The Cwn Annwn terrify mortal dogs who will refuse to enter any place they fear the hell hounds may be present.

St Agnes’ Eve is also a day of divination for the lovelorn. Unhappy singletons are advised to take some barley grains and sow them under an apple tree while chanting:

Barley, barley, I sow thee

That my true love I might see;

Take thy rake and follow me.

The apparition of your future partner will then appear before you, wielding a rake. An alternative approach is to eat salted herring last thing at night and your soon-to-be lover will turn up at your bedside in the middle of the night, bearing a glass of water, which sounds only slightly less terrifying than an encounter with the Cwn Annwn.

[artemlegere]

The Flight of Madeline and Porphyro (The Eve of St. Agnes)

Artist: William Holman Hunt (English, 1827–1910

Date: 1847-1857

Medium: Oil on plate

Collection: Walker Art Gallery Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Description

William Holman Hunt, like his fellow Pre-Raphaelites, was deeply influenced by the romantic poetry of Keats, in particular The Eve of St. Agnes, a 42 stanza tale of martyrdom and virgin love, published in 1820. Hunt’s painting Flight of Madeline and Porphyro depicts the two final stanzas of the poem, where the two lovers flee into the night. The painting impressed audiences at the 1848 Royal Academy Exhibition so much that Rossetti sought out Hunt and inducted him into the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, beginning a friendship and long standing collaboration.

Final stanzas of The Eve of St. Agnes by John Keats, 1819:

XLI. They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall; Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide; Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl, With a huge empty flaggon by his side; The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide, But his sagacious eye an inmate owns: By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide: - The chains lie silent on the footworn stones; - The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groan.

XLII. And they are gone: ay, ages long ago These lovers fled away into the storm. That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe, And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm, Were long be-nightmar’d. Angela the old Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform; The Beadsman, after thousand aves told, For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.

[girlintheafternoon]

Legioned faeries paced the coverlet, and pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.

John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (1820)

[caedmonofwhitby]

from The Eve of St Agnes by John Keats, 1819

[lesamis]

sweet sir galahad....... song of all time...... the exhaustion of sadness in periods of long depression the mundanity of the everyday you have to drag yourself through like wading through mud....... ms joan baez you've done it again

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Lyric Subgenres

This is a summary of the kinds of poems that lyric poets return to most frequently. It is convenient to be able to name a poem by its kind, because you can then compare it to others of the same kind. Examples:

Address to the reader - "Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book."

Ballad - "There lived a wife at Usher’s well, / And a wealthy wife was she; / She had three stout and stalwart sons, / And sent them o’er the sea."

Child's poem - "The Little Black Boy" (Blake)

Dawn poem (aubade) - "Get up! get up for shame! the blooming morn / Upon her wings presents the god unshorn."

Deathbed poem - "I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —"

Debate-poem - "Body / O who shall me deliver whole / From bonds of this tyrannic soul? . . . / Soul / What magic could me thus confine / Within another's grief to pine?"

Echo-poem - "Then tell me, what is that supreme delight? Light. / Light to the mind, what shall the will enjoy? Joy."

Ekphrasis (poem on an art object) - "Ode on a Grecuian Urn" (Keats)

Elegy - "Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then, my duty all ended?"

Emblem-poem (allegorical object) - "The Sick Rose" (Blake)

Epigram (short, pointed poem) - "I am his Highness' dog at Kew: / And pray, good sir, whose dog are you?"

Epitaph - Underneath this stone doth lie / All of beauty that could die.

Epithalamion (wedding song) - "And evermore they Hymen Hymen sing, / That al the woods them answer and theyr eccho ring."

Hymn - "Jerusalem, Jerusalem / Lift up your gates and sing, / Hosanna in the highest . . ."

Inscription - "I the poet William Yeats . . . / Restored this tower for my wife George: / And may these characters remain / When all is ruin once again."

Letter - "This is my letter to the world / That never wrote to me."

Lover's complaint - "And wilt thou leave me thus?"

Lullaby - "Lullay, lullay, thou tiny child."

Muse-poem - "The Solitary Reaper" (Wordworth)

Nocturne - "'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's."

Pastoral (rustic poem) - "The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing / For thy delight each May morning."

Political poem - "Easter, 1916" (Yeats)

Quest-poem - "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate."

Religious poem - "I saw eternity the other night."

Romance - "The Eve of St. Agnes" (Keats)

Seasonal poem - "Sumer is icumen in, / Lhude sing cuccu!"

Self-reflexive poem - "I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers."

Shaped poem - "Easter Wings" (Herbert)

Song - "It was a lover and his lass, / With a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no . . ."

Twin poems - "The Lamb" and "The Tyger" (Blake)

Valediction - "Adieu, farewell earth's bliss."

Variations on a theme - "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black-bird" (Stevens)

There are many other such that one could name: the bird poem, the eclogue (a dialogue of shepherds), the georgic (a poem on farming), the testament (a poem making a will), the conversation poem (a poem of a middle, or familiar, style recounting a conversation among friends), and so on. The essential thing is to realize that almost any poem is a repeat of a preceding genre, perhaps an answer to it, perhaps a revision of it. Thinking “What kind of a lyric is this?” makes you more aware of its place in a genre tradition, and of its response to that tradition.

Source ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs