Eve of St Agnes John Keats Physiologically Deconstructed No 7
Read by Louise
My schoolteachers delivered the perfect foundation for understanding life.
Their teaching of the English romantic poet John Keats and the ancient Greek playwrights Sophocles and Euripides was about gaining insights into personal feelings and responses.
Studying human physiology, as a physical education student, created new insights and a different linguistic register to look at literature and life.
How about using physiology to frame and deconstruct Madeline’s and Porphyro’s behaviours in Keats’s narrative poem, The Eve of Saint Agnes, is about delivering a new perspective for this literary classic.
Is there an alternative context for framing John Keats The Eve of St Agnes?
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.
'Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet:
"This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!"
'Tis dark: the iced gusts still rave and beat:
"No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!
Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine.—
Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring?
I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine,
Though thou forsakest a deceived thing;—
A dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing."
"My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride!
Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest?
Thy beauty's shield, heart-shap'd and vermeil dyed?
Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest
After so many hours of toil and quest,
A famish'd pilgrim,—sav'd by miracle.
Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest
Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think'st well
To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel.