Eve of St. Agnes

This poem is an example of negative capability on display, as Keats sandwiches romance and the power of imagination in between the literally chilly beginning and ending as his characters bring forth a bright spot of life in the midst of doom and gloom (character deaths and literal setting of the poem).

The Eve offers insights into Keats’s perspective on life: It’s a romance framed by tragedy, though it’s not a tragedy in itself. Keats doesn’t write pure romance, defined here as an absence of or complete escape from tragedy. His duty as a poet requires him to do never fully escape into romance; that’s the stuff of dreamers.

It’s hard to mistake how brutally cold the initial setting to this poem is.

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 woolly fold

Gloomy is probably an understatement – even the poor hare is limping and trembling. Pathetic is another probably appropriate word; worth noting here are a few facts concerning this poem’s creation. The poem was written during dreary January, shortly after the traumatic death of Tom Keats.

“Ah, Porphyro!” said she, “but even now “Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear, “Made tuneable with every sweetest vow; “And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear: “How chang’d thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear! “Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, “Those looks immortal, those complainings dear! “Oh leave me not in this eternal woe, “For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go.”

She comments on how sweet his voice was, and how clear and spiritual his eyes were in her fantasy state – versus his sad eyes and “pallid, chill and drear” state he’s actually in. Madeline gets a bit testy, or demanding, calling him to “Give me that voice again . . . those looks immortal.”
Keats gives us contrasting states of reality: the ideal versus what is, with distinctions blurred.

Beyond a mortal man impassion’d far At these voluptuous accents, he arose, Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing star Seen mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose; Into her dream he melted, as the rose Blendeth its odour with the violet,— Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows Like Love’s alarum pattering the sharp sleet Against the window-panes; St. Agnes’ moon hath set.

Madeline’s power of imagination seems to bring to life an ultra vivid, almost fourth dimentional version of her lover, who blends into her dreamlike state.

This uniting of the two lovers, as powerful as it could be, is left in a state of negative capability in the sense they now flee – out into the freezing cold, to enjoy a fate we are never allowed to share. We don’t know where they went, or if they died just ten feet outside of the castle.

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.

Romance and fantasy find life in an unlikely place – on the eve of a holy night and between members from two warring families. We see they slipped out of the palace unnoticed but again we don’t know where they go; we do see instead the Beadsman is dead, and so is Angela. These deaths can’t necessarily be good omens: The Beadsman was tied to Madeline, and Angela was linked to Porphyro as his guide and facilitator. We the reader must be content with half knowledge, which is, as I see it, the simplest way of understanding negative capability.